LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



W aA/XAX^^\A ( ^<>-,,,.,^ 



«L5^x^t»-i-.j> 



THE 



Longfellow Birthday-Book. 



ARRANGED BY 

CHARLOTTE FISKE BATES. fyryiJ^ 



If any thought of mine, or sung or told, 
Has ever given delight or consolation, 

Ye have repaid me back a thousandfold, 
By every friendly sign and salutation, 

Dedication to TJte Seaside and Fireside. 



yo- 



:S 




BOSTON: 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. 

1881. 



v(<^ 



Cop3Tight, 1881, 
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge : 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co 



PREFACE. 



In this compilation, what the author has 
written, either in prose or verse, regarding 
noted persons, has, with few exceptions, 
been set opposite their respective birth- 
days. Here and there, also, passages have 
been arbitrarily applied to indicate some 
trait, of life or work in the character or 
characters on whose day they appear. In 
such cases, the author may say with rea- 
son, — 

" Thou hast given 
My wbrds a meaning foreign to my thought." 

This appropriation of material, however, 
iii 



PREFACE. 

to an individual use, is not uniform, but 
occasional, as a glance at the pages will 
discover. Were it possible to make the 
words of one author serve the demands 
of two or three hundred birthdays, and 
use them with just and critical discrimi- 
nation, it would require twelve months, 
surely, instead of three. 

In presenting to Mr. Longfellow this 
arrangement of portions of his work, mar- 
ring the otherwise deep satisfaction of the 
oflfice, is this regret : that shortness of 
space has so often broken the graceful 
stem by which some blossom of thought 
was to be held, and that hasty handling 
or pressure of place has sometimes torn 
from the very blossom the sepals which 
complete its beauty. c. f. b. 



tj-zrbo ^ou-<^^' ^^ 



l^cxl^^- 



""h 




3(iinuatp* 



Janus am I ; oldest of potentates ! 
Forward I look and backward, and below 
I count — as god of avenues and gates — 
The years that through my portals come and go. 
I block the roads and drift the fields with snow, 
I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen ; 
My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow, 
My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men. 
Written for tJie Children's Almanac. 



January i. 

Time has a Doomsday-Book upon whose pages 
he is constantly recording illustrious names. But, 
as often as a new name is written there, an old one 
disappears. Only a few stand in illuminated char- 
acters, never to be effaced. Hyperion. 

All are architects of Fate, 

Working in these walls of Time : 

Some with massive deeds and great, 
Some with ornaments of rhyme. 

The Builders. 



January 2. 

He had not advanced one step, — not one. The 
same dreams, the same longings, the same aspira- 
tions, the same indecision. A thousand things had 
been planned, and none completed. Kavanagh. 

The heights by great men reached and kept 
Were not attained by sudden flight. 

But they, while their companions slept, 
Were toiling upward in the night. 

The Ladder of St. Augustine. 

And though the warrior's sun has set, 
Its light shall linger round us yet, — 
Bright, radiant, blest. 

CoPLAS DE Manrique, Tr.from the Spanish. 
Z 



January i. 

Calderon, 1601 ; E. Burke, 1730; Maria Edgeworth, 1767. 



January 2. 

General Wolfe, 1737. 



January 3. 
He . . . desired that the organist should relin- 
quish the old and pernicious habit of preluding \Yith 
triumphal marches, and running his fingers at ran- 
dom over the keys of his instrument, playing scraps 
of secular music very slowly, to make them sacred 
— and substitute instead, some of the beautiful 
sjTuphonies of Pergolesi, Palestrina, and Sebastian 
Bach. Kavanagh. 

While the majestic organ rolled 
Contrition from its mouths of gold. 

The Singers. 

— • 

January 4. 

No more ! Oh, how majestically mournful are 
those words ! They sound like the roar of the 
wind through a forest of pines ! Hyperion. 

How beautiful is youth ! how bright it gleams 
With its illusions, aspirations, dreams ! 
Book of Beginnings, Story without End, 
Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend ! 

All possibilities are in its hands, 

No danger daunts it, and no foe withstands ; 

In its sublime audacity of faith, 

" Be thou removed ! " it to the mountain^saith. 

And with ambitious feet, secure and proud, 

Ascends the ladder leaning on the cloud ! 

MORITURI SaLUTAMUS. 

4 



January 3. 

Cicero, B. C, 107; Pergolesi, 1710; D. Jerrold, 1S03 



January 4. 

J. Usher, 1580; J. L. C- Grimm, 17S5. 



January 5. 

The rays of happiness like those of light are col- 
orless when unbroken. Kavanagh. 

I do not love thee less for what is done, 
And cannot be undone. Thy very weakness 
Hath brought thee nearer to me, and henceforth 
My love will have a sense of pity in it, 
Making it less a worship than before. 

The Masque of Pandora. 



January 6. 

Let the good and the great be honored even in 
the grave. Let the sculptured marble direct our 
footsteps to the scene of their long sleep ; let the 
chiselled epitaph repeat their names, and tell us 
where repose the nobly good and wise ! 

Outre-Mer. 
Were a star quenched on high, 

For ages would its light, 
Still travelling downward from the sky, 

Shine on our mortal sight. 
So when a great man dies, 

For years beyond our ken, 
The light he leaves behind him lies 
Upon the paths of men. 

Charles Sumner. 
The angels sang in heaven when she was born. 

The Spanish Student. 
6 



January 5. 

B Rush, 1745; T. Pringle, 17S9; Jovellanos, 1803. 



January 6. 

Joan of Arc, 1402; Metastasio, 1698; Charles Sumner, 181 1. 



January 7. 

Oh, how wonderful is the human voice ! It is in- 
deed the organ of the soul ! The intellect of man 
sits enthroned visibly upon his forehead and in his 
eye ; and the heart of man is written upon his coun- 
tenance. But the soul reveals itself in the voice 
only. Hyperion. 

Then read from the treasured volume 

The poem of thy choice, 
And lend to the rhyme of the poet 
The beauty of thy voice. 

And the night shall be filled with music, 
And the cares, that infest the day. 

Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, 
And as silently steal away. 

The Day is Done. 



January 8. 

" Alas ! " said he with a sigh ; " and must my 
life, then, always be like the Sabbatical river of the 
Jews, flowing in full stream only on the seventh 
day, and sandy and arid all the rest .'"' 

Kavanagh. 
Don't cross the bridge till you come to it, 
Is a jDroverb old, and of excellent wit. 

The Golden Legend. 
A grave and sombre man, whose beetling brow 
O'erhangs the rushing current of his speech 
As rocks o'er rivers hang. 

The Spanish Student. 

8 



January 7. 

J C. Fabricius, 1742 ; R. Nicoll, 1814. 



January 8. 

C. F. Weisse, 1726. 



January 9. 

From that hour forth he resolved that he would 
no longer veer with every shifting wind of circum- 
stance, — no longer be a child's plaything in the 
hands of Fate, which we ourselves do make or mar. 

Hyperion. 

The star of the unconquered will, 

He rises in my breast, 
Serene, and resolute, and still, 

And calm, and self-possessed. 

The Light of Stars. 



January 10. 

Longing to depart upon the fair journey before 
her, and yet lingering on the paternal threshold, as 
if she wished both to stay and to go. Kavanagh. 

Thus it is our daughters leave us. 
Those we love, and those who love us ! 
Just when they have learned to help us. 
When we are old and lean upon them, 
Comes a youth.with flaunting feathers. 
With his flute of reeds, a stranger 
Wanders piping through the village. 
Beckons to the fairest maiden. 
And she follows where he leads her, 
Leaving all things for the stranger ! 

Hiawatha. 
10 



January 9, 



January 10. 



II 



January ii. 
What silence, too, came with the snow, and what 
seclusion ! Kavanagh. 

Traveller ! in what realms afar, 
In what planet, in what star. 
In what vast, aerial space, 
Shines the light upon thy face ? 
Poet, thou, whose latest verse 
Was a garland on thy hearse ; 
Thou hast sung, with organ tone. 
In Deukalion's life, thine own. 

Bayard Taylor. 

January 12. 

The power to embody the indefinite, and render 
perfect is his. Hyperion. 

Poet ! I come to touch thy lance with mine ; 

Not as a knight, who on the listed field 

Of tourney touched his adversary's shield 

In token of defiance, but in sign 
Of homage to the mastery, which is thine, 

In English song ; nor will I keep concealed. 

And voiceless as a rivulet frost-congealed, 

My admiration for thy verse divine. 
Not of the howling dervishes of song, 

Who craze the brain with their delirious dance, 

Art thou, O sweet historian of the heart ! 
Therefore to thee the laurel-leaves belong. 

To thee our love and our allegiance. 

For thy allegiance to the poet's art. 

Wapentake. To Alfred Tennyson. 
12 



January ii. 

Parmlgiano, 1503; Bayard Taylor, 1825. 



January 12. 

Gov. Winthrop, 15S8; Pestalozzi, 1746; Alfred Tennyson, iSio. 



13 



January 13. 

Tone, act, attitude and look, — the signals upon 
the countenance, — the electric telegraph of touch ; 
all these betray the yielding citadel before the word 
itself is uttered, which, like the key surrendered, 
opens every avenue and gate of entrance, and 
makes retreat impossible ! K^v^nagh. 

Strange is the heart of man, with its quick, myste- 
rious instincts ! 

Strange is the life of man, and fatal or fated are 
moments, 

Whereupon turn, as on hinges, the gates of the wall 
adamantine ! 

The Courtship of Miles Standish. 



January 14. 

It is truly a wondrous winter ! what summer 
sunshine ! what soft Venetian fogs ! How the 
wanton, treacherous air coquets with the old gray- 
beard trees ! Such weather makes the grass and 
our beards grow apace ! Hyperion. 

Decide not rashly. The decision made 
Can never be recalled. The gods implore not, 
Plead not, solicit not ; they only offer 
Choice and occasion, which once being passed 
Return no more. Dost thou accept the gift ? 

The Masque of Pandora. 

14 



January 13. 

p. Freneau, 1752 ; S. Woodworth, 1785. 



January 14. 

A. G. Czartoryski, 17; 



15 



January 15. 

We are not to suppose that all who take holy 
orders are saints ; but we should be still further 
from believing that all are hypocrites. 

Outre-Mer. 

And you, Brother Cuthbert, come with me 
Alone into the sacristy ; 

You, who should be a guide to your brothers, 
And are ten times worse than all the others, 
For you I 've a draught that has long been brew- 
ing, 
You shall do a penance worth the doing. 

The Golden Legend. 



January 16. 

" A life of sorrow and privation, a hard life, in- 
deed, do these poor devil authors have of it," re- 
plied the Baron. Hyperion. 

Him whom thou dost once enamor. 
Thou, beloved, never leavest ; 
In life's discord, strife and clamor. 
Still he feels thy spell of glamour ; 

Him of hope thou ne'er bereavest. 

Epimetheus. 



t6 



January 15. 

Mollere, 1622; S. Parr, 1747; Talma, 1763. 



January i6. 

Richard Savage, 1697. 



January 17. 

" Did it ever occur to you that he [Goethe] was 
in some points like Ben Franklin ? The practical 
tendency of his mind was the same ; his love of 
science was the same ; his benignant, philosophic 
spirit was the same ; and a vast number of his little 
poetic maxims and soothsayings seem nothing more 
than the worldly wisdom of Poor Richard, versified." 

Hyperion. 
All the means of action — 
The shapeless masses, the materials — 
Lie everywhere about us. What we need 
Is the celestial fire to change the flint 
Into transparent crystal, bright and clear. 

That fire is genius. The Spanish Student. 

• 

January 18. 

The search after truth and freedom, both intel- 
lectual and spiritual, became a passion in his soul. 

Kavanagh. 
And in the wreck of noble lives, 
Something immortal still survives. 

The Building of the Ship. 
When I look from my window at night, 
And the welkin above is all white, 

All throbbing and panting with stars ; 
Among them majestic is standing 
Sandalphon the angel, expanding 

His pinions in nebulous bars. 

Sandalphon. 



January 17. 

Benjamin Franklin, 1706; Alfieri, 1749. 



January i8. 

Montesquieu, 1689; J. Gillies, 1747; Daniel Webster, 1782. 



19 



January 19. 
When I read his strange fancies ... a feeling 
of awe and mysterious dread comes over me. I 
wish to hear the sound of living voice or footstep 

near me — to see a friendly and familiar face. 

Hyperion. 
At the window winks the flickering firelight ; 
Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer, 

Social watch-fires 
Answering one another through the darkness. 
The Golden IMile-stone. 
Alas ! to-day I would give everything 
To see a friend's face, or to hear a voice 
That had the slightest tone of comfort in it. 
, * Judas Maccab^eus. 

January 20. 
" Nothing done ! nothing done ! " exclaimed he, 
as he wended his way homeward, musing and med- 
itating. " And shall all these lofty aspirations end 
in nothing ? " Kavanagh. 

Disenchantment ! Disillusion ! 

Must each noble aspiration 
Come at last to this conclusion, 
Jarring discord, wild confusion, 

Lassitude, renunciation ! Epimetheus 
All common things, each day's events. 

That with the hour begin and end, 
Our pleasures and our discontents, 
Are rounds by which we may ascend. 

The Ladder of St. Augustine. 
20 



January 19. 

B. St. Pierre, 1737 ; Edgar A. Poe, 



January 20. 

J. J. Barthelemy, 1716; H. T. von Schon, 1773. 



January 21. 

In the press of our life it is difficult to be calm. 
The voices of the Present say, " Come ! " But the 
voices of the Past say, " Wait ! " Hyperion. 

Let us, then, be up and doing, 

With a heart for any fate ; 

Still achieving, still pursuing, 

Learn to labor and to wait. 

A Psalm of Life. 
• 

January 22. 

So much to pardon — so much to pity — so much 
to admire ! Hyperion. 

How the Titan, the defiant, 
The self-centred, self reliant 
Wrapped in visions and illusions, 
Robs himself of life's best gifts ! 

The Masque of Pandora. 
And the legend, I feel, is a part 
Of the hunger and thirst of the heart, 

The frenzy and fire of the brain, 
'l"hat grasps at the fruitage forbidden, 
The golden pomegranates of Eden, 

To quiet its fever and pain. Sandalphon. 
Noble art thou in thy birth 

Be noble in every thought 
And in every deed ! 

The Golden Legend. 



January 21. 

Lord Erskine, 1750; C. Folleii, 1794. 



January 22. 

Lord Bacon, 1561; P. Gassendi, 1592; Lord B\'ron, 



January 23. 
As the heart is, so is love to the heart. It par- 
takes of its strength or weakness, its health or dis- 
ease. Kavanagh. 
Each man's chimney is his Golden Mile-stone ; 
Is the central point, from which he measures 

Every distance 
Through the gateways of the world around him. 

In his farthest wanderings still he sees it ; 

Hears the talking flame, the answering night-wind, 

As he heard them 
When he sat with those who were, but are not. 

The Golden Mile-stone. 



January 24. 
It is worth a student's while to observe calmly 
how tobacco, wine, and midnight did their work 
like fiends upon the delicate frame of Hoffman, and 
no less thoroughly upon his delicate mind. . . . He 
was a man of rare intellect . . . but the fire of his 
genius burned not peacefully, and with a steady 
flame, upon the hearth of his home. Hyperion. 
Touch the goblet no more ! 
It will make thy heart sore 
To its very core ! The Golden Legend. 
I tremble for him. 
I know his nature, devious as the wind. 
And swift to change, gentle and yielding always. 
Be steadfast, O my son ! Judas Maccabeus. 

24 



January 23. 

F. von Matthisson, 1761 ; B. R. Haydon, 17S6. 



January 24. 

Frederick the Great, 1712; C. J. Fox, 1749; Hoffmann, 1776. 



25 



January 25. 

Surely, it is a characteristic trait of a great and 
liberal mind, that it recognizes humanity in all its 
forms and conditions. Hyperion. 

He sings of love, whose flame illumes 
The darkness of lone cottage rooms ; 

He feels the force, 
The treacherous under-tow and stress. 
Of wayward passions, and no less 

The keen remorse. 
But still the burden of his song 
Is love of right, disdain of wrong ; 

Its master-chords 
Are Manhood, Freedom, Brotherhood ; 
Its discords but an interlude. 

Between the words. Robert Burns. 



January 26. 

The first pressure of sorrow crushes out from 
our hearts the best wine ; afterwards the constant 
weight of it brings forth bitterness, — the taste and 
strain from the lees of the vat. Dkift-Wood. 

Oh fear not in a world like this, 
And thou shalt know erelong, 
Know how sublime a thing it is 
To suffer and be strong. 

The Light of Stars. 
For thee old legends breathed historic bieath. 

Three Friends of Mine {Sonnet to Felton). 
26 



January 25. 

Boyle, 1626; F. H. Jacobi, 1743; Robert Burns, 1759. 



January 26. 

Thomas Noon Talfourd, 1795 



27 



January 27. 
In the evening they heard the glorious Don Gio- 
vanni of Mozart. Of all operas, this was Flem- 
ming's favorite. What rapturous flights of sound ! 
what thrilling, pathetic chimes ! what wild, joyous 
revelry of passion I what a delirium of sense ! what 
an expression of agony and woe ! — all the feelings 
of suffering and rejoicing humanity sympathized 

with and finding a voice in those tones. 

Hyperion. 
The multiplied, wild harmonies 
Freshened and burst into a gale ; 
A tempest howling through the dark, 
A crash as of some shipwrecked bark, 
A loud and melancholy wail. 
'Interlude before the Musician's Tale, Wayside Inn. 
• 

January 28. 
Winter is here in earnest ! How the old churl 
whistles and threshes the snow ! Sleet and rain 
are falling too. Already the trees are bearded 
with icicles ; and the two broad branches of yon- 
der pine look like the white mustache of some old 
German baron. Hyperion. 

Then come the wild weather, come sleet or come 

snow, 
We will stand by each other, however it blow. 

Oppression, and sickness, and sorrow, and pain 
Shall be to our true love as links to the chain. 

Annie of Tharaw, Translated from Simo7t Dach. 



January 27. 

R. Bentley, 1661 ; Mozart, 1756- 



January 28. 



29 



January 29. 

Thou glorious spirit-land ! Oh, that I could be- 
hold thee as thou art, — the region of life and light 
and love, and the dwelling-place of those beloved 
ones whose being has flowed onward, like a silver- 
clear stream into the solemn-sounding main, into 
the ocean of Eternity ! Hyperion. 

The spirit-world around this world of sense 
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere 

Wafts through these earthly mists and vapors dense 
A vital breath of more ethereal air. 

Haunted Houses. 



January 30. 

We cannot suppose that a period of time will 
ever arrive, when the world, or any considerable 
portion of it, shall have come up abreast with 
these great minds, so as fully to comprehend them. 

Hyperion. 
Beautiful is the tradition 

Of that flight through heavenly portals, 
The old classic superstition 
Of the theft and the transmission 
Of the fire of the Immortals ! 

Prometheus. 



30 



January 29. 

Swedenborg, 1688; T. Paine, 1737- 



January 30. 

Walter Savage Landor, 1775. 



31 



January 31. 

An enlightened mind . - . is not hoodwinked ; it 
is not shut up in a gloomy prison, till it thinks the 
walls of its own dungeon the limits of the universe, 
and the reach of its own chain the outer verge of 
all intelligence. Drift-Wood. 

Let us then labor for an inward stillness, — 
An inward stillness and an inward healing ; 
That perfect silence where the lips and heart 
Are still, and we no longer entertain 
Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions. 
But God alone speaks in us, and we wait 
In singleness of heart, that we may know 
His will, and in the silence of our spirits, 
That we may do his will, and do that only ! 

New England Tragedies. 



January 31. 

p. Horberg, 1746; Bernard Barto'i, 1784; F. Schubert, 1797. 



Z2 



THE TWO RIVERS. 

Slowly the hour-hand of the clock moves round ; 
So slowly that no human eye hath power 
To see it move ! Slowly in shine or shower 
The painted ship above it, homeward bound, 

Sails, but seems motionless, as if aground ; 
Yet both arrive at last ; and in his tower 
The slumberous watchman wakes and strikes the 

hour, 
A mellow, measured, melancholy sound. 

Midnight ! the outpost of advancing day ! 
The frontier town and citadel of night ! 
The watershed of Time, from which the streams 

Of Yesterday and To-morrow take their way, 
One to the land of promise and of light, 
One to the land of darkness and of dreams ! 



34 



fcBruarp* 



SNOW-FLAKES. 

Out of the bosom of the Air, 

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments 
shaken, 
Over the woodlands brown and bare, 
Over the harvest-fields forsaken, 
Silent, and soft, and slow 
Descends the snow. 

Even as our cloudy fancies take 

Suddenly shape in some divine expression, 
Even as the troubled heart doth make 
In the white countenance confession, 
The troubled sky reveals 
The grief it feels. 

This is the poem of the air, 

Slowly in silent syllables recorded ; 
This is the secret of despair. 

Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded, 
Now whispered and revealed 
To wood and field. 
35 



February i. 

The winter did not pass without its peculiar de- 
h'ghts and recreations. The singing of the great 
wood-fires ; the blowing of the wind over the chim- 
ney tops, as if they were organ pipes ; the splendor 
of the spotless snow ; the purple wall built round 
the horizon at sunset ; the sea-suggesting pines, 
with the moan of the billows in their branches, on 
which the snows were furled like sails ; the north- 
ern lights ; the stars of steel ; the transcendent 
moonlight, and the lovely shadows of the leafless 
trees upon the snow ; — these things did not pass 
unnoticed nor unremembered. Kavanagh. 

By the fireside there are peace and comfort, 
Wives and children, with fair, thoughtful faces, 

Waiting, watching 
For a well-known footstep in the passage. 

The Golden Mile-stone. 



February 2, 
Peace ! peace ! Why dost thou question God's 



providence ? " Hy 



PERION. 



Angels of Life and Death alike are his ; 

Without his leave they pass no threshold o'er ; 
Who, then, would wish or dare, believing this, 
Against his messengers to shut the door ? 

The Two Angels. 
36 



February i. 

E. Coke, 1551; L T. Rosegarten, 175S. 



February 2. 

J. Nichols, 1744. 



37 



February 3. 

How the chorus swells and dies, like the wind of 
summer ! How those passages of mysterious im- 
port seem to wave to and fro, like the swaying 
branches of trees ; from which anon some solitary 
sweet voice darts off like a bird, and floats away 
and revels in the bright, warm sunshine ! 

Hyperion. 

How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow 
Into the arctic regions of our lives, 
Where little else than life itself survives ! 

MORITUKI SaLUTAMUS. 



February 4. . 

The passing years had drunk a portion of the light 
from her eyes, and left their traces on her cheeks, 
as birds that drink at lakes leave their footprints 
on the margin. But the pleasant smile remained, 
and reminded him of the bygone days. 

Kavanagh. 

Can it be so ! Or does my sight 
Deceive me in the uncertain light .-' 
Ah, no ! I recognize that face, 
Though Time has touched it in his flight, 
And changed the auburn hair to white. 

The Golden Legend. 
38 



February 3. 

Mendelssohn, 1809 : Elisha Kent Kane, iS 



February 4. 

G. Lillo; 1693; J. Quincy, 1772; M. Hopkins, 1802. 



39 



February 5. 

Wonderful and many were the soft accords and 
plaintive sounds that came from that little instru- 
ment, touched by the clever hand. Every feeling 
of the human heart seemed to find an expression 
there, and awaken a kindred feeling in the hearts of 
those who heard him. Hyperion. 

Fair-haired, blue-eyed, his aspect blithe, 

His figure tall and straight and lithe, 

And every feature of his face 

Revealing his Norwegian race ; 

A radiance, streaming from within, 

Around his eyes and forehead beamed. 

The Angel with the violin, 

Painted by Raphael, he seemed. 

Prelude to Tales of a Wayside Inn. 
He is dead, the sweet musician ! 

He has moved a little nearer 

To the Master of all music ! Hiawatha. 



February 6. 
The natural alone is permanent. Kavanagh. 

Thou sittest by the fireside of the heart, 
Feeding its flame. The Spanish Student. 

Kind messages, that pass from land to land ; 

Kind letters, that betray the heart's deep history, 
In which we feel the pressure of a hand, — 

One touch of fire, — and all the rest is mystery ! 
Dedication to The Seaside and Fireside. 
40 



February 5. 

J. Lingard, 1771; R. Peel, 17SS; Ole B. Bull, 1810. 



February 6. 

Madame Sevign^, 1626. 



41 



February 7. 
Over all he sees, over all he writes, are spread 
the sunbeams of a cheerful spirit — the light of in- 
exhaustible human love. As in real life, so in his 
writings — the serious and the comic, the sublime 
and the grotesque, the pathetic and the ludicrous 
are mingled together. Hyperion. 

The day is ending, 
The night is descending ; 
The marsh is frozen, 
The river dead. 

Through clouds like ashes 
The red sun flashes 
On village windows 
That glimmer red. 

An Afternoon in February. 



February 8. 
Some critics are like chimney-sweepers : they 
put out the fire below, or frighten the swallows from 
their nests above ; they scrape a long time in the 
chimney, cover themselves with soot, and bring 
nothing away but a bag of cinders, and then sing 
from the top of the house as if they had built it. 

Drift-Wood. 
Thus he grew up, in Logic point-device, 
Perfect in Grammar, and in Rhetoric nice. 

Emma and Eginhard. 
Ah ! vainest of all things 
Is the gratitude of kings ! Belisarius. 
42 



February 7. 

Charles Dickens, i8i2. 



February 8. 

T. A. D'Aubigne, 1550; Samuel Butler, 1612. 



43 



February 9. 

There was no sympathy between them. Their 
souls never approached, never understood each 
other, and words were often spoken which wounded 
deeply. Hyperion. 

Thou speakest truly, poet ! and methinks 
More hearts are breaking in this world of ours 
Than one would say. The Spanish Student. 

O weary hearts ! O slumbering eyes ! 

O drooping souls, whose destinies 
Are fraught with fear and pain. 
Ye shall be loved again ! Endymion. 



February 10. 

Songs of departed glory are the privilege of a 
conquered people, and prophetic hopes are a con- 
solation seldom wanting to the oppressed. 

Drift-Wood. 

Pride and humiliation hand in hand 

Walked with them through the world where'er 
they went ; 
Trampled and beaten were they as the sand, 
And yet unshaken as the continent. 

The Jewish Cemetery at Newport. 



44 



February 9. 

D. Bernouilli, 1700; C C. Volney, i757- 



February io. 

Henry Hart Milman, 1791 ; James Smith, 1775. 



45 



February ii. 

O glorious thought ! that lifts me above the 
power of time and chance, and tells me that I can- 
not pass away, and leave no mark of my existence. 

Outre-Mer. 
And the trembling maiden held her breath 
At the tales of the awful, pitiless sea, 
With all its terror and mystery. 

The Building of the Ship, 

The skilful hand that wrote 
The Indian tale of Hobomok, 
And Philothea's classic page. 

Interlude before the Sicilian's Tale. 

So mild, so merciful, so strong, so good. 
So patient, peaceful, loyal, loving, pure. 

The Golden Legend. 

February 12. 

The sword of his spirit had been forged and 
beaten by poverty. It was not broken, not even 
blunted, but rather strengthened and sharpened, 
by the blows it gave and received. Hyperion. 

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State ! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
Humanity with all its fears, 
With all its hopes of future years. 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 

The Building of the Ship. 

46 



February ii. 

Fontenelle, 1657 ; W. Falconer, 1732 ; Lydia Maria Child, 1S02, 



February 12. 

La-Motte-Fouque, 1777; Abraham Lincoln, iSog. 



47 



February 13. 
The full soul is silent. Only the rising and fall- 
ing tides rush murmuring througlr their channels. 

Kavanagh. 
That was the first sound in the song of love ! 
Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound. 
Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings 
Of that mysterious instrument, the soul, 
And play the prelude to our fate. We hear 
The voice prophetic, and are not alone. 

The Spanish Student. 
A man of forecast and of thrift, 
And of a shrewd and careful mind 
In this world's business, but inclined 
Somewhat to let the next world drift. 

The Cobbler of Hagenau. 



February 14. 
Sooner or later, some passages of every one's 
romance must be written either in words or actions. 

Hyperion. 
No one is so accursed by fate, 
No one so utterly desolate, 

But some heart, though unknown, 
Responds unto his own. 

Responds, — as if with unseen wings, 
An angel touched its quivering strings ; 
And whispers, in its song, 
" Where hast thou stayed so long ? '' 
Endymion. 

48 



February 13. 

Talleyrand, i754- 



February 14. 

C. R. von Gluck, 171. 



49 



February 15. 

Oh, did we but know when we are happy ! Could 
the restless, feverish, ambitious heart be still, but 
for a moment still, and yield itself, without one 
farther-aspiring throb, to its enjoyment, — then 
were I happy, — yes, thrice happy ! Outre-Mer. 
O lost days of delight, that are wasted in doubting 

and waiting ! 
O lost hours and days in which we might have been 

happy ! Elizabeth. 

♦ — 

February 16. 

And ever faster fell the snow, a roaring torrent 

from those mountainous clouds Thus the 

evening set in ; and winter stood at the gate wag- 
ging his white and shaggy beard, like an old harper 
chanting an old rhyme : " How cold it is ! how cold 
It is ! " Hyperion. 

Philip Melancthon ! thou alone 
Faithful among the faithless known. 

My Philip, in the night-time sing 
This song of the Lord I send to thee ; 
And I will sing it for thy sake. 
Until our answering voices make 
A glorious an ti phony, 
And choral chant of victory! 

Second Interlude to N. E. Tragedies, 
Martin Luther. 

50 



February 15. 

R. W. Griswold, 1815. 



February i6. 

Philip Melancthon, 1497; Baron von Trenck, 1726. 



February 17. 

If we could read the secret history of our ene- 
mies, we should find in each man's life, sorrow and 
suffering enough to disarm all hostility. 

Drift-Wood. 

I pledge you in this cup of grief, 
Where floats the fennel's bitter leaf ! 
The Battle of our Life is brief, 
The alarm, — the struggle, — the relief, 
Then sleep we side by side. 

The Goblet of Life. 



February 18. 

Did you ever read Redi's Bacchus in Tuscany ? 
an ode which seems to have been poured out of 
the author's soul, as from a golden pitcher. 

Hyperion. 
Even Redi, though he chanted 

Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys, 
Never drank the wine he vaunted 
In his dithyrambic sallies. 

Then with water fill the pitcher 

Wreathed about with classic fables ; 
Ne'er Falernian threw a richer 
Light upon Lucullus' tables. 
Drinking Song. Inscription for an Antique Pitcher. 
His gracious presence upon earth 
Was as a fire upon a hearth. 

The Golden Legend. 
52 



February 17. 



-♦ — 



February 18. 

Redi, 1626; Charles Lamb, 1775; George Peabody, 1795. 



53 



February 19. 

There is something divine in the science of num- 
bers. Like God, it holds the sea in the hollow of 
its hand. It measures the earth; it weighs the 
stars ; it illumines the universe ; it is law, it is 
order, it is beauty. Kavanagh. 

I saw, as in a dream sublime, 

The balance in the hand of Time. 

O'er East and West its beam impended ; 

And day, with all its hours of light, 

Was slowly sinking out of sight. 

While, opposite, the scale of night, 

Silently with the stars ascended. 

The Occultation of Orion. 



February 20. 
I have a strange fancy . . . whenever I come to 
the theatre, to see the end of all things. When the 
crowd is gone, and the curtain raised again to air 
the house, and the lamps are all out, save here and 
there one behind the scenes, the contrast with what 
has gone before is most impressive ... a com- 
mentary on the play, and makes the show com- 
plete. Hyperion. 
Being all fashioned of the self-same dust, 
Let us be merciful as well as just ! 

Emma and Eginhard. 
This is my birth-day, and a happier one 
Was never mine. The Divine Tragedy. 

54 



February 19. 

Copernicus, 1473; R. Cumberland, 1732; W. W. Story, 1819. 



February 20. 

Voltaire, 1694; David Garrick, 17 16. 



55 



February 21. 

He had but passed from one chapel to another 
in the same vast cathedral. He was still beneath 
the same ample roof, still heard the same divine 
service chanted in a different dialect of the same 
universal language. Kavanagh. 

Love is the Holy Ghost within ; 
Hate, the unpardonable sin ! 
Who preaches otherwise than this, 
Betrays his Master with a kiss ! 

Christus. First Interlude. 

February 22. 

These are the high nobility of Nature. . . . Pos- 
terity shall never question their titles. Hyperion. 

The name that dwells on every tongue 
No minstrel needs. 
CopLAS DE Manrique, Tr. from the Spanish. 

Sing to him, say to him, here at his gate 

Where the boughs of the stately elms are meeting, 

Some one hath lingered to meditate, 

And send him unseen this friendly greeting : 

That many another hath done the same, 

Though not by a sound was the silence broken ; 
The surest pledge of a deathless name 

Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken. 

The Herons of Elmwood. 
56 



February 21. 

John Henry Newman, iSoi 



February 22. 

Washington, 1732; James Russell Lowell, 1819. 



57 



February 23. 
Truly, the love of home is interwoven with all 
that is pure, and deep, and lasting in earthly affec- 
tion. Let us wander where we may, the heart looks 
back with secret longing to the paternal roof. 

Hyperion. 
Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion, 
Nor the march of the encroaching city 

Drives an exile 
From the hearth of his ancestral homestead. 

We may build more splendid habitations, 

Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures, 

But we cannot 
Buy with gold the old associations ! 

The Golden Mile-stone. 



February 24. 

Have you real talent, — real feeling for art } 
Then study music, — do something worthy of the 
art, — and dedicate your whole soul to the beloved 
saint. If without this you have a fancy for quavers 
and demi-semi-quavers, practise for yourself and 
by yourself, and torment not therewith the Capell- 
meister Kreisler and others. Hyperion. 

Yea, music is the prophets' art ; 
Among the gifts that God hath sent, 
One of the most magnificent ! 

Christus. Second Interlude. 
5S 



February 23. 

Samuel Pepys, 1632; William Mason, 1725. 



February 24. 

G. F. Handel, 16S4; George William Curtis, 1S24. 



59 



February 25. 
Her form arose, like a tremulous evening-star, in 
the firmament of his soul. He conversed with her, 
and with her alone ; and knew not when to go. All 
others were to him as if they were not there. He 
saw their forms, but saw them as the forms of in- 
animate things. Hyperion. 

Thy face is fair ; 
There is a wonder in thine azure eyes 
That fascinates me. Thy whole presence seems 
A soft desire, a breathing thought of love. 
Say, would thy star like Merope's grow dim 
If thou shouldst wed beneath thee .-* 

The Masque of Pandora. 
• 

February 26. 

Nature is a revelation of God ; Art, a revelation 
of man. Indeed, Art signifies no more than this, 
Art is Power. 

His fame was great in all the land. 

Emma and Eginhard. 
Come to me, O ye children ! 

For I hear you at your play. 
And the questions that perplexed me 
Have vanished quite away. 

Ye are better than all the ballads 
That ever were sung or said ; 

For ye are living poems, 
And all the rest are dead. Children. 

60 



t EBRUARY 25. 
Germain de St. Foix, 1703. 



February 26. 

F. J. D. Arago, 1786; Victor Hugo, 1802. 



61 



February 27. 
If there be a sympathy between the minds of the 
writer and reader, the bounds and barriers of a for- 
eign tongue are soon overleaped. ... In every man 
he loves his humanity only, not his superiority. 

Hyperion. 
Ah, yes ! we all 
Love him, from the bottom of our hearts. 

The Golden Legend. 

He the sweetest of all singers. 

All the many sounds of nature 
Borrowed sweetness from his singing; 
All the hearts of men were softened 
By the pathos of his music ; 
For he sang of peace ancj freedom, 
Sang of beauty, love, and longing ; 
Sang of death, and life undying 
In the Islands of the Blessed. Hiawatha. 
Only those are crowned and sainted 
Who with grief have been acquainted, 

Making nations nobler, freer. Prometheus. 

• — 

February 28. 
Every twig and shrub, with its sheath of crystal, 
flashed in the level rays of the rising sun. 

Outre-Mer. 
A man of mark. Saga of King Olaf. 
Never any marvellous story 
But himself could tell a stranger. Hiawatha. 
62 



February 27. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1S07. 



February 28. 

Michael de Montaigne, 1533; R- A. F. Reaumur, 1683. 



63 



February 29. 

He resolved henceforward not to lean on others ; 
but to walk self-confident and self-possessed ; — no 
longer to waste his years in vain regrets, nor wait 
the fulfilment of boundless hopes and indiscreet 
desires ; but to live in the Present wisely, alike for- 
getful of the Past, and careless of what the myste- 
rious Future might bring. And from that moment 
he was calm and strong; he was reconciled with 
himself. Hyperion. 

Assert thyself ; rise up to thy full height ; 
Shake from thy soul these dreams effeminate. 
These passions born of indolence and ease. 
Resolve, and thou art free. 

The Masque of Pandora. 



64 



February 29. 

Edward Cave, 1692; G. Rossini, 1792. 



65 



THREE FRIENDS OF MINE. 

When I remember them, those friends of mine, 
Who are no longer here, the noble three, 
Who half my life were more than friends to me, 
And whose discourse was like a generous wine, 

I most of all remember the divine 

Something, that shone in them, and made us see 
The archetypal man, and what might be 
The amplitude of Nature's first design. 

In vain I stretch my hands to clasp their hands ; 
I cannot find them. Nothing now is left 
But a majestic memory. They meanwhile 

Wander together in Elysian lands, 

Perchance remembering me, who am bereft 

Of their dear presence, and, remembering, smile. 



66 



a^arcl)* 



WOODS IN WINTER. 

When winter winds are piercing chill, 

And through the hawthorn blows the gale, 

With solemn feet I tread the hill, 
That overbrows the lonely vale. 

Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs 
Pour out the river's gradual tide. 

Shrilly the skater's iron rings. 
And voices fill the woodland side. 

Alas ! how changed from the fair scene, 
When birds sang out their mellow lay, 

And winds were soft, and woods were green, 
And the song ceased not with the day ! 

But still wild music is abroad, 

Pale, desert woods ! within your crowd ; 
And gathering winds, in hoarse accord, 

Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud. 

Chill airs and wintry winds ! my ear 
Has grown familiar with your song ; 

I hear it in the opening year, 
I listen, and it cheers me long. 

^1 



March i. 

The silent falling of the snow is to me one of the 
most solemn things in Nature. The fall of au- 
tumnal leaves does not so much affect me. 

Hyperion. 
Then over the waste of snows 
The noonday sun uprose, 

Through the driving mists revealed 
Like the lifting of the Host, 
By incense-clouds almost 

Concealed. The Saga of King Olaf, 

Be patient ; Time will reinstate 

Thy health and fortunes. 

The Golden Legend. 



March 2. 

From day to day, and from year to year, the triv- 
ial things of life postponed the great designs which 
he felt capable of accomplishing, but never had the 
resolute courage to begin. Kavan.\gh. 

We have not wings, we cannot soar ; 

But we have feet to scale and climb 
By slow degrees, by more and more, 
The cloudy summits of our time. 

The Ladder of St. Augustine. 
There is Aquinum, the old Volscian town, 

Where Juvenal was born, whose lurid light 
Still hovers o'er his birthplace like the crown 
Of splendor seen o'er cities in the night. 

Monte Cassino. 
68 



March i. 

Sir Samuel Romilly, 1757- 



March 2. 

Juvenal, 40 a. d. ; Sir T. Bodley, 1544. 



69 



March 3. 

If it be painful to see this misunderstanding be- 
tween scholars and the world, ... it is still more 
painful to see the private suffering of authors by 
profession. How many have languished in pov- 
erty ! Hyperion. 

The dead laurels of the dead 

Rustle for a moment only. 

And I answer, — " Though it be, 
Why should that discomfort me ? 

No endeavor is in vain ; 
Its reward is in the doing, 
And the rapture of pursuing 

Is the prize the vanquished gain." 

The Wind Over the Chimney. 

March 4. 

Why perplex the spirit of a child with these met- 
aphysical subtleties, these dark, mysterious specu- 
lations, which man, in all his pride of intellect, can- 
not fathom or explain ? Outre-Mer. 

There is no Death ! What seems so is transition ; 

This life of mortal breath 
Is but a suburb of the life elysian, 

Whose portal we call Death. Resignation. 



70 



March 3. 

Edmund Waller, 1605; Thomas Otway, 1651 



March 4. 

Lord Somers, 1652; Karl Lachmann, 1793. 



71 



March 5. 

A melancholy train of thought forced itself 
home upon my mind. The joys and sorrows of 
this world are so strikingly mingled ! Our mirth 
and grief are brought so mournfully in contact ! 
We laugh when others weep, and others rejoice 
when we are sad ! Tiie light heart and the heavy 
walk side by side and go about together ! 

Outre-Mer. 
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 

Is our destined end or way ; 

But to act, that each to-morrow 

Find us farther than to-day. 

A Psalm of Life. 
And all men loved him for his modest grace 
And comeliness of figure and of face. 

Emma and Eginhard. 



March 6. 

What we call miracles and wonders of Art are 
not so to him who created them ; for they were 
created by the natural movements of his own great 
soul. Statues, paintings, churches, poems, are but 
shadows of himself; — shadows in marble, colors, 
stone, words. Hyperion. 

Nothing the greatest artist can conceive 
That every marble block doth not confine 
Within itself ; and only its design, 
The hand that follows intellect can achieve. 
The Artist. A Sonnet tr./rom Michael A ng^elo. 
72 



MARCH 5. 
James Madison, 1751 



March 6. 

Michaelangelo Buonaiotti, 1475; Sir Charles Napier, 



12 



March 7. 
I venerate old age ; and I love not the man who 
can look without emotion upon the sunset of life, 
when the dusk of evening begins to gather over the 
watery eye, and the shadows of twilight grow broader 
and deeper upon the understanding ! Outre-Mer. 
The wind, the rain, have passed away ; 
The lamps are lit, the fires burn bright, 
The house is full of life and light : 
It is the Golden Wedding Day. 
The ancient bridegroom and the bride 
Smiling contented and serene 
Upon the blithe, bewildering scene. 
Behold, well-pleased, on every side 
Their forms and features multiplied. 

The Hanging of the Crane. 

March 8. 

Thus from the distant past the history of the hu- 
man race is telegraphed from generation to genera- 
tion, through the present to all succeeding ages. 

Outre-Mer. 

The kingdoms crumble and fall 
Apart, like a ruined wall. 

Finale to New England Tragedies. 

Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of 

heaven, 
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of 

the angels. Evangeline. 

74 



March 7. 

sir J. F, Aland, 1670. 



March 8. 

Wm. Roscoe, 1753; A. M. Layard, 1817; C P. Cranch, 1813. 



75 



March 9. 
If you find a lady who pleases you very much, 
and you wish to marry her, and she will not listen 
to such a horrid thing, I see but one remedy, which 
is, to find another who pleases you more, and who 
will listen to it. Hyperion. 

Most untrue 
To him who keeps most faith with thee. 

Woe is me ! 
The falcon has the eyes of the dove. 

The Spanish Student. 
In life's delight, in death's dismay, 
In storm and sunshine, night and day, 
In health, in sickness, in decay, 
Here and hereafter, I am thine. 

The Golden Legend. 



March 10. 
" No ; it certainly is not the vocation of children 
to be silent," said Kavanagh, laughing. " That 
would be out of nature ; saving always the children 
of the brain, which do not often make so much 
noise in the world as we desire. Kavanagh. 

O little hands ! that, weak or strong, 
Have still to serve or rule so long, 

Have still so long to give or ask ; 
I, who so much with book and pen 
Have toiled among my fellow-men, 

Am weary, thinking of your task. 

/- Weariness. 



jMakch 9. 

Mirabeau, 1-49; F. J. Gall, 175S; William Cobbett.iyS; 



March io. 

p. Malpighi, 162S; Schlegel, 1772. 



77 



March ii. 

Torqtiati Tasso ossa hicjacent — Here lie the bones 
of Torquato Tasso, — is the simple inscription upon 
the poet's tomb, in the church of St. Onofrio. . . . 
He sleeps midway between his cradle at Sorrento 

and his dungeon at Ferrara In the distance 

rise the towers of the Roman Capitol, where after 
long years of sickness, sorrow, and imprisonment, 
the laurel crown was prepared for the great epic 
poet of Italy. Outke-Mer. 

O ye dead Poets, who are living still 

Immortal in your verse, though life be fled, 
And ye, O living Poets, who are dead 
Though ye are living, if neglect can kill, 
Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill, 

With drops of anguish falling fast and red 
From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head, 
Ye were not glad your errand to fulfil .'' 

. The Poets. 

March 12. 
Alas ! poor child ! thou too must learn, like others, 
that the sublime mystery of Providence goes on 
in silence, and gives no explanation of itself, — no 
answer to our impatient questionings ! Hyperion. 
To murmur against death in petulant defiance. 

Is never for the best, 
To will what God cloth will, that is the only science 
That gives us any rest. 

Consolation. Translated from Malherbe. 
78 



March ii. 

Torquato Tasso, 1544; Francis Wayland, 1796. 



March 12. 

Bishop Berkeley, 1684; Lady Stanhope, 1776. 



79 



March 13. 

As turning the logs will make a dull fire burn, 
so change of studies a dull brain. Drift-Wood. 

Sings the blackened log a tune 
Learned in some forgotten June 
From a school-boy at his play, 
When they both were young together, 
Heart of youth and summer weather 
Making all their holiday. 

The Wind Over the Chimney. 
Discovered 
The secret that so long had hovered 
Upon the misty verge of Truth. 

The Golden Legend. 



March 14. 

Why need one always explain.? Some feelings 
are quite untranslatable. No language has yet 
been found for them. Hyperion. 

Then the moon, in all her pride, 
Like a spirit glorified, 
Filled and overflowed the night 
With revelations of her light. 

And the Poet's song again 
Passed like music through my brain ; 
Night interpreted to me 
All its grace and mystery. 

Daylight and Moonlight. 
80 



March 13. 

Dr. Joseph Priestley, 1733. 



March 14. 

Klopstock, 1803. 



March 15. 

It was very brief; only a few lines, and not a 
name mentioned in it ; an impulse, an ejaculation 
of love ; every line quivering with electric fire, — 
every word a pulsation of the writer's heart. 

Kavanagh. 
.... I love thee as the good love heaven. 
The Spanish Student. 
Does not all the blood within me 
Leap to meet thee, leap to meet thee, 
As the springs to meet the sunshine ? 

HlAWATHA- 

A tender heart ; a will inflexible. 

John Endicott. New England Tragedies. 

« 

March 16. 
And, to cheer thy solitary labor, remember that 
the secret studies of an author are the sunken piers 
upon which is to rest the bridge of his fame, span- 
ning the dark waters of Oblivion. They are out 
of sight ; but without them no superstructure can 
stand secure ! Hyperion. 

In the elder days of Art, 

Builders wrought with greatest care 
Each minute and unseen part ; 

For the Gods see everywhere. 

The Builders. 
There is no light in earth or heaven 

But the cold light of stars ; 
And the first watch of night is given 
To the red planet Mars. 

The Light of Stars. 
82 



March 15. 

Andrew Jackson, 1767. 



March i6. 

Boileau, 1635; Caroline L. Herschel, 1750. 



83 



March 17. 

Men of iron ; men who have dared to breast the 
strong breath of public opinion. Hyperion. 

Still let it ever be thy pride 
To linger by the laborer's side ; 
With words of sympathy or song 
To cheer the dreary march along 
Of the great army of the poor. 

To A Child. 
Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom 

Makes the flowers of poesy bloom 
In the forge's dust and cinders, 

In the tissues of the loom. Nuremberg. 
• 

March 18. 
Ah, how different were their themes ! Death 
and Love, — apples of Sodom, that crumble to 
ashes at a touch, — golden fruits of the Hesperides, 
— golden fruits of Paradise, fragrant, ambrosial, 
perennial ! Kavanagh. 

We spake of many a vanished scene, 

Of what we once had thought and said. 
Of what had been, and might have been, 
And who was changed, and who was dead ; 

And all that fills the hearts of friends. 

When first they feel, with secret pain, 
Their lives thenceforth have separate ends. 
And never can be one again. 

The Fire of Drift-Wood. 
84 



March 17. 

C. Niebuhr, 1733; T. Chalmers, 1780; Ebenezer ElJiott, 1781 



March i8. 

J. C. Calhoun, 1782. 



85 



March 19. 

He did not so much denounce vice, as inculcate 
virtue ... he did not lacerate the hearts of his 
hearers with doubt and disbelief, but consoled, and 

comforted, and healed them with faith. 

Kavanagh. 
The dawn is not distant, 
Nor is the night starless ; 
Love is eternal ! 
God is still God, and 
His faith shall not fail us ; 
Christ is eternal ! 

Song of the Nun of Nidaros. 



March 20. 

He felt at that moment how sweet a thing it 
would be to possess one who should seem beau- 
tiful to him alone, and yet to him be more beautiful 
than all the world beside ! Hyperion. 

" He is in love. Were you ever in love, Baltasar ? " 
" I was never out of it, good Chispa. It has 
been the torment of my life." 

The Spanish Student. 

Ister, with hardening v/inds, congeals its cerulean 

waters. 
Under a roof of ice winding its way to the sea. 
There where ships have sailed, men go on foot ; 

and the billows. 
Solid made by the frost, hoof-beats of horses indent. 

Ovid in Exile, Translated frojtt Ovid's Tristia. 

86 



March 19. 

E. Bickersteth, 17S6; A. P. Peabody, iSii ; Livingstone, 1815. 



March 20. 

Ovid, 43 B. c. 



87 



March 21. 

You are startled at the boldness and beauty of 
his figures and illustrations which are scattered 
everywhere with a reckless prodigality. With a 
thousand extravagances are mingled ten thousand 

beauties of thought and expression He is 

difficult to understand, intricate, strange — a comet 

among the bright stars of German literature 

In everything there is strength, a rough good-nature, 
all sunshine overhead, and underneath the heavy 
moaning of the sea. Well may he be called "Jean 
Paul, the Only-One." Hyperion. 

Lives of great men all remind us 

We can make our lives sublime, 
And departing, leave behind us 
Footprints on the sands of time. 

A Psalm of Life. 
• — 

March 22. 

Every one . . . forms an image in his fancy of per- 
sons and things he has never seen ; and the artist 
reproduces them in marble or on canvas. 

Hyperion. 
Figures that almost move and speak. 

Keramos. 

Where, twisted round the barren oak, 

The summer vine in bea\ity clung, 
And summer winds the stillness broke, 
The crystal icicle is hung. 

Woods in Winter. 
88 



March 21. 

R. Bruce, 1274; Jean Paul Richter, 1763; H. K. White, 1785. 



March 22. 

Vandyck, 1599; C. Le Brun, 1619; Rosa Bonheur, 1822. 



89 



March 23. 

Erelong even this glimpse into the ideal world 
had vanished ; and he felt himself bound to the 
earth with a hundred invisible threads, by which a 
hundred urchins were tugging and tormenting him ; 
and it was only with considerable effort, and at in- 
tervals, that his mind could soar to the moral dig- 
nity of his profession. Kavanagh. 

The conflict of the Present and the Past, 

The ideal and the actual in our life. 
As on a field of battle held me fast. 

While this world and the next world were at 
strife. Monte Cassino. 



March 24. 

Yet even here, and in the stormy month of March 
even, there are bright, warm mornings, when we 
open our windows to inhale the balmy air. The 
pigeons fly to and fro, and we hear the whirring 
sound of wings. Old flies crawl out of the cracks, 
to sun themselves, and think it is summer. They 
die in their conceit ; and so do our hearts within 
us, when the cold sea-breath comes from the east- 
ern sea. Hyperion. 

How in the turmoil of life can love stand, 
Where there is not one heart, and one mouth, and 
one hand ? 
Annie of Tharaw, tra7islated from Simon Dock. 
90 



March 23. 



March 24. 



91 



March 25. 

It seemed to him as if the unknown tenant of 
that grave had opened his lips of dust, and spoken 
to him the words of consolation, which his soul 
needed, and which no friend had yet spoken. In a 
moment the anguish of his thoughts was still. • 

Hyperion. 

Sorely tried and sorely tempted. 
From no agonies exempted, 
In the penance of his trial, 
And the discipline of pain ; 
Often by illusions cheated. 
Often baffled and defeated 
In the tasks to be completed, 
He, by toil and self-denial, 
To the highest shall attain. 

The Masque of Pandora. 



March 26. 

Material wealth gives a factitious superiority to 
the living, but the treasures of intellect give a real 
superiority to the dead. Outre-Mer. 

In their feverish exultations. 

In their triumph and their yearning. 
In their passionate pulsations. 
In their words among the nations, 
The Promethean fire is burning. 

Prometheus. 
92 



March 25. 



March 26. 

C. Gesner, 1516; Count Rumford, 1753; N. Bowditch, 1773. 



93 



March 27. 
" Answer me, thou mysterious future ! tell me, — 
shall these things be according to my desires ? " 

And the mysterious future, interpreted by those 
desires, replied, " Soon thou shalt know all. It 
shall be well with thee ! " Kavanagh. 

It is the mystery of the unknown 

That fascinates us ; we are children still, 
Wayward and wistful ; with one hand we cling 
To the familiar things we call our own, 
And with the other, resolute of will, 
Grope in the dark for what the day will bring. 
The Two Rivers. 



March 28. 

A temple dedicated to Heaven, and like the Pan- 
theon at Rome, lighted only from above. 

Hyperion. 
Let nothing disturb thee, 
Nothing affright thee ; 
All things are passing ; 
God never changeth ; 
Patient endurance 
Attaineth to all things ; 
Who God possesseth 
In nothing is wanting ; 
Alone God sufficeth. 

Santa Teresa's Book-mark. 
Tr. from tJie Spanish of Satita Teresa. 
94 



March 27. 

Michael Bruce, 1746- 



March 28. 

Santa Teresa, 1515; Orville Dewey, 1794. 



95 



March 29. 

It is the Transfiguration of Christ, by Raphael. 
A child looks not at the stars with greater wonder 
than the artist at this painting. He knows how 
many studious years are in that picture. He knows 
the difficult path that leads to perfection, having 
himself taken some of the first steps. Thus he 
recalls the hour when that broad canvas was first 
stretched upon its frame, and Raphael stood before 
it, and laid the first colors upon it, and beheld the 
figures one by one born into life. Hyperion. 

Forth from Urbino's gate there came 

A youth with the angelic name 

Of Raphael, in form and face 

Himself angelic, and divine 

In arts of color and design. Kkkamos. 



March 30. 

It seems impossible they should ever grow to be 
men, and drag the heavy artillery along the dusty 
roads of life. Kavanagh. 

O little feet ! that such long years 
Must wander on through hopes and fears, 
Must ache and bleed beneath your load ; 
I, nearer to the wayside inn 
Where toil shall cease and rest begin, 
Am weary, thinking of your road ! 

Weariness. 
96 



March 29. 

Sanzio Raphae], 1413. 



March 30. 

Sir Henry Wotton, 1568. 



97 



March 31. 

The soul . . . seemed ... to be rapt away to 
heaven in the full, harmonious chorus, as it swelled 
onward, doubling and redoubling, and rolling up- 
ward in a full burst of rapturous devotion. 

Outre-Mer. 
RAPHAEL. 
I am the Angel of the Sun, 
Whose flaming wheels began to run 

When God's almighty breath 
vSaid to the darkness and the night, 
Let there be light ! and there was light ! 
I bring the gift of Faith. 



URIEL. 

I am the Minister of Mars, 

The strongest star among the stars ! 

My songs of power prelude 
The march and battle of man's life, 
And for the suffering and the strife, 
I give him Fortitude ! 

The Golden Legend. 
( The A ngels of the Seven Planets.) 



98 



March 31. 

Descartes, 1596; F. J. Haydn, 1732; W. M. Hunt, 1824. 



99 



THE GALAXY. 

Torrent of light and river of the air, 

Along whose bed the glimmering stars are seen 
Like gold and silver sands in some ravine 
Where mountain streams have left their channels 
bare ! 

The Spaniard sees in thee the pathway, where 
His patron saint descended in the sheen 
Of his celestial armor, on serene 
And quiet nights, when all the heavens were fair. 

Not this I see, nor yet the ancient fable 

Of Phaeton's wild course, that scorched the skies 
Where'er the hoofs of his hot coursers trod ; 

But the white drift of worlds o'er chasms of sable, 
The star-dust, that is whirled aloft and flies 
From the invisible chariot-wheels of God. 



100 



^'>(k^^i^~ 




%^vih 



AN APRIL DAY. 

I LOVE the season well, 
When forest glades are teeming with bright forms, 
Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell 

The coming-on of storms. 

From the earth's loosened mould 
The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives ; 
Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold, 

The drooping tree revives. 

The softly-warbled song 
Comes from the pleasant woods, and colored wings 
Glance quick in the bright sun that moves along 

The forest openings. 

Inverted in the tide 
Stand the gray rocks, and trembling shadows throw, 
And the fair trees look over, side by side. 

And see themselves below. 

Sweet April ! many a thought 
Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed : 
Nor shall they fail till, to its autumn brought, 

Life's golden fruit is shed. 

lOI 



April i. 

Already the grass shoots forth. The waters leap 
with thrilling pulse through the veins of the earth ; 
the sap through the veins of the plants and trees ; 
and the blood through the veins of man. What a 
thrill of delight in spring-time ! What a joy in 
being and moving ! Hyperion. 

Turn, turn, my wheel ! All life is brief ; 
What now is bud will soon be leaf, 

What now is leaf will soon decay ; 
The wind blows east, the wind blows west ; 
The blue eggs in the robin's nest 
Will soon have wings and beak and breast. 

And flutter and fly away. Keramos. 



April 2. 

The genius of the North seems always to have 
delighted in romantic fiction. Outre-Mer. 

Welcome, my old friend, 
Welcome to a foreign fireside. 

And as swallows build 
In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys, 
So thy twittering songs shall nestle 
In my bosom. 

To AN Old Danish Song-book. 



April i. 

Wm. Harvej', 157S; Solomon Gesner, 1730; Bismarck, 



April 2. 

Thomas Jefferson, 1743 i H. C. Andersen, 1805. 



103 



April 3. 

It was Sunday morning/and the church bells 

were all ringing together Anon they ceased, 

and the woods, and the clouds, and the whole vil- 
lage, and the very air itself seemed to pray — so 
silent was it everywhere. Hyperion. 

Herbert's chapel at Bemerton 

Hardly more spacious is than this ; 
But Poet and Pastor, blent in one. 
Clothed with a splendor, as of the sun, 
That lowly and holy edifice. 

Old St. David's at Radnor. 
How sweet a life was his ; how sweet a death ! 
Living, to wing with mirth the weary hours, 
Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer; 
Dying, to leave a memory like the breath 
Of summers full of sunshine and of showers, 
A grief and gladness in the atmosphere. 

In the Churchyard at Tarrvtown. 
— ♦ 

April 4. 

Sects themselves he would not destroy, but sec- 
tarianism. Kavanagh. 
Not he that repeateth the name, 
But he that doeth the will ! 

Finale to New England Tragedies. 

Science of numbers, geometric art. 
And lore of stars, and music knew by heart. 
Emma and Eginhard. 
104 



April 3. 

G Herbert, 1593; W. Irving, 1783; E. E. Hale, 1822. 



April 4. 

B. Pierce, 1809; J. F. Clarke, iSio. 



105 



April 5. 

Weak minds make treaties with the passions they 
cannot overcome, and trj' to purchase happiness at 
the expense of principle. But the resolute will of 
a strong man scorns such means, and struggles 
nobly with his foe to achieve great deeds. 

Hyperion. 

But noble souls, through dust and heat, 
Rise from disaster and defeat 

The stronger ; 
And conscious still of the divine 
Within them, lie on earth supine 

No longer. 

The Sifting of Peter. 



April 6. 

He did not refrain from reprobating intemper- 
ance because one of his deacons owned a distil- 
lery .... nor slavery, because one of the great 
men of the village slammed his pew-door, and left 
the church with a grand air, as much as to say, that 
all that sort of thing would not do. Kavanagh. 

You know I say 
Just what I think, and nothing more nor less, 
And, when I pray, my heart is in my prayer. 
I cannot say one thing and mean another. 
If I can't pray, I will not make believe. 

Giles Corey, New England Tragedies- 
106 



April 5. 

T. Hobbes, 1588; General Havelock, 1795. 



April 6. 

John Pierpont, 1785 



107 



April 7. 

He preached the doctrines of Christ. He 
preached holiness, self-denial, love. Kavanagh. 
Well done ! Thy words are great and bold ; 

At times they seem to me, 
Like Luther's, in the days of old, 
Half-battles for the free. 

To William E. Channing. 
Skilful alike with tongue and pen, 
He preached to all men everywhere 
The Gospel of the Golden Rule, 
The New Commandment given to men, 
Thinking the deed, and not the creed. 
Would help us in our utmost need. 

Prblude to Tales of a Wayside Inn. 
— • 

April 8. 

How well does the song of a passing bird reprc: 
sent the glad but transitory days of youth ! 

Outre-Mer. 
With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas, 
We sailed for the Hesperides, 
The land where golden apples grow ; 
But that, ah ! that was long ago. 

How far, since then, the ocean streams 
Have swept us from that land of dreams, 
That land of fiction and of truth, 
The lost Atlantis of our youth ! 

Dedication of Ultima Thule, To G. W. G- 
108 



April 7. 

H. Blair, 1718; W.Wordsworth, 1770; W. E. Channing. 



April 8. 

D. Rittenhouse, 1732 ; G. W. Greene, iSi 



109 



April 9. 

If the clouds are overcast, it is no wild storm of 
wind and rain, but clouds that melt and fall in 
showers. One does not wish to sleep, but lies awake 
to hear the pleasant sound of the dropping rain. 

Hyperion. 

All the soul in rapt suspension, 
All the quivering, palpitating 
Chords of life in utmost tension. 

Prometheus. 

Not for triumph in the battle, 
Nor renown among the warriors. 
But for profit of the people, 
For advantage of the nations. 

Hiawatha. 
• 

April 10. 

The strength of criticism lies only in the weakness 
of the thing criticised. Kavanagh. 

Build to-day, then, strong and sure, 
With a firm and ample base ; 

And ascending and secure 

Shall to-morrow find its place. 

The Builders. 

Within her tender eye 
The heaven of April, with its changing light. 
The Spirit of Poetrv. 



April 9. 

Fisher Ames, 1758. 



April io. 

H. Grotiiis, 1583; W. Hazlitt, 1778. 



Ill 



April ii. 

This earthly life, when seen hereafter from 
Heaven, will seem like an hour passed long ago, 
and dimly remembered. Hyperion. 

The daybreak of great truths as yet unrisen, 
The intuition and the expectation 
Of something, which, when come, is not the same 
But only like its forecast in men's dreams, 
The longing, the delay, and the delight. 
Sweeter for the delay ; youth, hope, love, death. 
And disappointment which is also death, 
All these make up the sum of human life. 

The Divine Tragedy. 
Around thee would have swarmed the Attic bees ; 

And Plato welcomed thee to his demesne. 

Three Friends of 'Miiiu(Son?iet to Felton). 

• 

April 12. 

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of 
doing, while others judge us by what we have al- 
ready done. Kavanagh. 

Great men die and are forgotten. 

Wise men speak ; their words of wisdom 

Perish in the ears that hear them. 

Hiawatha. 

Not in the clamor of the crowded street, 

Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, 
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat. 

The Poet. 
112 



April ii. 

C. Smart, 1752; G. Canning, 1770; E. Everett, 1794. 



April 12. 

Henry Clay, 1777. 



"3 



April 13. 
When imagination spreads its wings in the bright 
regions of devotional song, . . . judgment should 
direct its course, but there is no danger of its soar- 
ing too high. Outre-Mer. 
And as the flowing of the ocean fills 
Each creek and branch thereof, and then retires, 
Leaving behind a sweet and wholesome savor ; 
So doth the virtue and the life of God 
Flow evermore into the hearts of those 
Whom he hath made partakers of his nature ; 
And when it but withdraws itself a little, 
Leaves a sweet savor after it, that many 
Can say they are made clean by every word 
That he hath spoken to them in their silence. 

New England Tragedies, 

Leddras JMessage from Prison. 

• 

April 14. 

One half of the world must sweat and groan, 

that the other half may dream. Hyperion. 

Let our unceasing, earnest prayer 

Be, too, for light, — for strength to bear 

Our portion of the weight of care 

That crushes into dumb despair 

One half the human race. 

The Goblet of Life. 

Came the Spring with all its splendor, 
All its birds and all its blossoms. 
All its flowers and leaves and grasses. 

Hiawatha. 
114 



April 13. 

Earl Strafford, 1593; Madame Guj'on, 164S. 



April 14. 

Huyghens, 1629; H. Bushnell, 1802. 



115 



April 15. 
I do not see why a successful book is not as great 

an event as a successful campaign, only different 

in kind and not easily compared. Hyperion. 

At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, 
here and there, 

Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, 
ghost-like, into air. 

Not a sound rose from the city at that early morn- 
ing hour, 

But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient 
tower. 

Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms 
filled my brain ; 

They who live in history only seemed to walk the 
earth again. The Belfry of Bruges. 

April 16. 
The dream of science, the historical research, 
. . . the tried courage . . . where are they ? With 
the living, and not with the dead. Outre-Mer. 

Southward with fleet of ice 

Sailed the corsair Death ; 
Wild and fast blew the blast. 

And the east-wind was his breath. 
Alas ! the land-wind failed, 

And ice-cold grew the night ; 
And nevermore, on sea or shore, 
Should Sir Humphrey see the light. 

Sir Humphrey Gilbert. 
116 



April 15. 

Sir J. C. Ross, 1800; J. L. Motley, 18 14. 



April i6. 

Sir H. Sloane, 1660; Sir J. Franklin, 17S6. 



117 



April 17. 
The stone was rolled away from the door of his 
heart ; death was no longer there, but an angel clothed 
in white . . . and looking into the bright morning 
heaven, he said, " I will be strong." Hyperion. 
The churches are all decked with flowers, 
The salutations among men 
Are but the Angel's words divine, 
" Christ is arisen ! " and the bells 
Catch the glad murmur, as it swells, 
And chant together in their towers. 

The Golden Legend. 
'Twas Easter-Sunday. The full-blossomed trees 
Filled all the air with fragrance and with joy. 

The Spanish Student. 
♦ 

April 18. 
History casts its shadow far into the land of 
song. Outre-Mer. 

To every Middlesex village and farm, — 
A cry of defiance and not of fear, 
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, 
And a word that shall echo foievermore ! 
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, 
Through all our history, to the last. 
In the hour of darkness and peril and need. 
The people will waken and listen to hear 
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed. 
And the midnight message of Paul Revere. 

Paul Revere"s Ride, Tales of a Wayside Inn. 
118 



April 17. 

Bishop Stillingfleet, 1635; W. G. Simms, 1806. 



April i8. 

Sir F. Baring, 1740; G. H. Lewes, 1817. 



19 



April 19. 

The red-flowering maple is first in blossom, its 
beautiful purple flowers unfolding a fortnight before 
the leaves. The moose-wood follows, with rose- 
colored buds and leaves ; and the dog-wood, robed 
in the white of its own pure blossoms. Then comes 
the sudden rain-storm ; and the birds fly to and 
fro, and shriek. Where do they hide themselves 
in such storms ? at what firesides dry their feathery 
cloaks ? Hyperion. 

It was the season, when through all the land 

The merle and mavis build, and building sing 
Those lovely lyrics, written by His hand, 

Whom Saxon Caedmon calls the Blithe-heart 
King ; 
When on the boughs the purple buds expand, 

The banners of the vanguard of the Spring. 

The Birds of Killingworth. 



April 20. 
Authors must not, like Chinese soldiers, expect 
to win victories by turning somersets in the air. 

Kavanagh. 
Our feelings and our thoughts 
Tend ever on, and rest not in the Present. 
As drops of rain fall into some dark well, 
And from below comes a scarce audible sound, 
So fall our thoughts into the dark Hereafter, 
And their mysterious echo reaches us. 

The Spanish Student. 
120 



April 19. 

R. Sherman, 1721 



April 20. 



April 21. 
There is one kind of wisdom which we learn 
from the world, and another kind which can be 
acquired in solitude only. Outre-Mer. 

The pen became a clarion . . . Monte Cassino. 
Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endur- 
ance is godlike. Evangeline. 
I have within myself 
All that my heart desires ; the ideal beauty 
Which the creative faculty of mind 
Fashions and follows in a thousand shapes 
More lovely than the real. 

The Masque of Pandora. 

April 22. 
He does not so much idealize as realize. — He 
only copies nature. Hyperion. 

The counterfeit and counterpart 
Of Nature reproduced in Art. Keramos. 
I can see the breezy dome of groves, 
The shadows of Deering's Woods ; 
And the friendships old and the early loves 
Come back with a sabbath sound, as of doves 
In quiet neighborhoods. 

And the verse of that sweet old song, 
It flutters and murmurs still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

Mv Lost Youth. 



April 21. 

Kant, 1724; Bishop Heber, 17S3 ; C. Bronte, i8i6. 



April 22. 

H. Fielding, 1707; J. Grahame, 1765; Madame de Stael, 1766. 



[23 



April 23. 
Thus, O Genius ! are thy footprints hallowed ; 

and the star shines for ever over the place of thy 

nativity. Hyperion. 

A vision as of crowded city streets, 
With human life in endless overflow ; 
Thunder of thoroughfares ; trumpets that blow 
To battle ; clamor, in obscure retreats, 

Of sailors landed from their anchored fleets ; 
Tolling of bells in turrets, and below 
Voices of children, and bright flowers that throw 
O'er garden-walls their intermingled sweets ! 

This vision comes to me when I unfold 
The volume of the Poet paramount. 
Whom all the Muses loved, not one alone ; — 

Into his hands they put the lyre of gold, 

And, crowned with sacred laurel at their fount. 

Placed him as Musagetes on their throne. 

Shakespeare. 



April 24. 
Don Quixote thought he could have made beauti- 
ful bird-cages and toothpicks if his brain had not 
been so full of ideas of chivalry. Most people 
would succeed in small things, if they were not 
troubled with great ambitions. Note-Book. 

Nothing useless is or low. 
Each thing in its place is best, 
And what seems but idle show 
Strengthens and supports the rest. 

The Builders. 
124 



April 23. 

J. C. Scaliger, 1484; Shakespeare, 1564. 



April 24. 

J. Trumbull, 1750 



125 



April 25. 

These flowers and green leaves of poetry have 
not the dust of the highway upon them. They have 
been gathered fresh from the secret places of a 
peaceful and gentle heart. There flow deep waters, 
silent, calm, and cool ; and the green trees look into 
them and " God's blue heaven.'' Drift-Wood. 

For voices pursue him by day, 

And haunt him by night. 
And he listens, and needs must obey, 

When the Angel says : " Write." 

The Poet and his Songs, Ultima Thule. 



April 26. 

" And is Uhland always so soothing and spirit- 
ual ? " 

" Yes, he generally looks into the spirit-world, 
. . . but there is nothing morbid in his mind. He 
is always fresh and invigorating, like a breezy morn- 
ing." Hyperion. 

The stranger at my fireside cannot see 

The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear; 

lie but perceives what is ; while unto me 
All that has been is visible and clear. 

Haunted Houses. 



[26 



April 25. 

O. Cromwell, 1599; John Keble, 1792. 



April 26. 

T. Reid, 1710; D. Hume, 171 1 ; J. L. Uhland, 1787. 



127 



April 27. 

Mighty is the spirit of the past, amid the ruins 
of the Eternal City ! Outre-Mer. 

The silence of the place was like a sleep, 

So full of rest it seemed ; each passing tread 

Was a reverberation from the deep 
Recesses of the ages that are dead. 

Monte Cassino. 

Ah ! what a wondrous thing it is 
To note how many wheels of toil 
One thought, one word, can set in motion ! 

The Building of the Ship. 



April 28. 

Ah, how wonderful is the advent of the Spring ! 

— the great annual miracle of the blossoming of 
Aaron's rod, repeated on myriads and myriads of 
branches ! — the gentle progression and growth of 
herbs, flowers, trees, — gentle, and yet irrepressible, 

— which no force can stay, no violence restrain, 
like love, that wins its way and cannot be withstood 
by any human power, because itself is divine power. 

Kavanagh. 

Thus came the lovely spring with a rush of blos- 
soms and music, 

Flooding the earth with flowers, and the air with 
melodies vernal. Elizabeth. 

128 



April 27. 

E. Gibbon, 1737; M. Wollstonecraft, 1753; F. B. Morse, 1791 



April 28. 

C. Cotton, 1630; J. Monroe, 1758. 



J 29 



April 29. 

" Friends must be torn asunder, and swept along 
in the current of events, to see each other seldom, 
and perchance no more. For ever and ever in the 
eddies of time and accident, we whirl away." 

Hyperion. 

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other 
in passing, 

Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the 
darkness ; 

So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one an- 
other, 

Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and 
a silence. Elizabeth. 

— « — 

April 30. 

Dignified, affable, somewhat bent by his legal 
erudition, as a shelf is by the weight of the books 
upon it. Kavanagh. 

With him dwelt his dark-eyed daughter. 
Wayward as the Minnehaha, 
With her moods of shade and sunshine, 
Eyes that smiled and frowned alternate, 
Feet as rapid as the river. 
Tresses flowing like the water. 
And as musical a laughter ; 
And he named her from the river, 
From the waterfall he named her, 
Minnehaha, Laughing Water. Hiawatha. 
130 



April 29. 



April 30. 



131 



MOODS. 

O THAT a song would sing itself to me 
Out of the heart of Nature, or the heart 
Of man, the child of Nature, not of Art, 
Fresh as the morning, salt as the salt sea, 

With just enough of bitterness to be 
A medicine to this sluggish mood, and start 
The life-blood in my veins, and so impart 
Healing and help in this dull lethargy ! 

Alas ! not always doth the breath of song 

Breathe on us. It is like the wind that bloweth 
At its own will, not ours, nor tarrieth long ; 

We hear the sound thereof, but no man knoweth 
From whence it comes, so sudden and swift and 

strong, 
Nor whither in its wayward course it goeth. 



132 



ai9ap. 



IT IS NOT ALWAYS MAY. 

No hay pajaros en los nidos de antano. 

Spanish Proverb. 

The sun is bright, — the air is clear, 

The darting swallows soar and sing, 
And from the stately elms I hear 

The bluebird prophesying Spring. 
So blue yon winding river flows. 

It seems an outlet from the sky, 
Where waiting till the west-wind blows, 

The freighted clouds at anchor lie. 
All things are new ; — the buds, the leaves. 

That gild the elm-tree's nodding crest. 
And even the nest beneath the eaves ; — 

There are no birds in last year's nest ! 
All things rejoice in youth and love, 

The fulness of their first delight ! 
And learn from the soft heavens above 

The melting tenderness of night. 
Maiden, that read'st this simple rhyme, 

Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay ; 
Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime, 

For oh, it is not always May ! 
Enjoy the Spring of Love and Youth, 

To some good angel leave the rest ; 
For Time will teach thee soon the truth, 

There are no birds in last year's nest ! 
133 



May I. 
In character, in manners, in style, in all thing.", 
the supreme excellence is simplicity. Kavanagh. 
You know that people nowadays 
To what is old give little praise ; 
All must be new in prose and verse : 
They want hot bread, or something worse. 

The wholesome bread of yesterday, 
Too stale for them, is thrown away. 
Nor is their thirst with water slaked. 
Interlude before the Poet's Tale, Wayside Inn. 

His was Octavian's prosperous star. 

The rush of Caesar's conquering car 

At battle's call ; 

His, Scipio's virtue ; his, the skill 

And the indomitable will 

Of Hannibal. 
CoPLAS DE Manrique, Translated from ike Spanish. 



May 2. 

Oh, I have looked with wonder upon those who, 
in sorrow and privation, and bodily discomfort, and 
sickness, which is the shadow of death, have worked 
right on to the accomplishment of their great pur- 
poses. Hyperion. 
Honor to those whose words or deeds 
Thus help us in our daily needs. 
And by their overflow 

Raise us from what is low. 

Santa Filomena 
134 



May 1. 

J. Addison, 1672; Duke of Wellington, 1769, 



May 2. 

R. Hall, 1764; J. Gait, 1779; J. G. Palfrey, 1796. 



135 



May 3. 
It is the part of an indiscreet and troublesome am- 
bition to care too much about fame. Hyperion. 

The thirst of power, the fever of ambition. 

The Divine Tragedy. 

" TariT awhile behind, for I have something to tell 

thee, 
Not to be spoken lightly, nor in the presence of 

others ; 
Them it concerneth not, only thee and me it con- 

cerneth." 
And they rode slowly along through the woods, 

conversing together. 
It was a pleasure to live on that bright and happy 

May morning ! Elizabeth. 
•— 

May 4. 
I never hear the sweet warble of a bird from its na- 
tive wood, without a silent wish that such a cheerful 
voice and peaceful shade were mine. Outre-Mer. 
Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these ? 
Do you ne'er think who made them, and who 
taught 
The dialect they speak, where melodies 

Alone are the interpreters of thought ? 
Whose household words are songs in many keys, 

Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught ! 
Whose habitations in the tree-tops even 
Are half-way houses on the road to heaven ! 
The Birds of Killingworth, Ta/es of a IVayside Inn. 
136 



May 3. 

N. Machiavelli, 1469; E C. von Kleist, 1715- 



May 4. 

J. J. Audubon, 17S0; W. W. Prescott, 1796, H. Mann, 1796. 



137 



May 5. 

Men are at work in gardens ; and in the air 
there is an odor of the fresh earth. The leaf-buds 
begin to swell and blush. The white blossoms of 
the cherry hang upon the boughs like snow-flakes ; 
and erelong our next-door neighbors will be com- 
pletely hidden from us by the dense green foliage. 

Hyperion. 

The robin and the bluebird, piping loud, 

Filled-all the blossoming orchards with their glee ; 

The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud 
Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be. 
The Birds of Killingworth. 



May 6. 



How often, ah, how often between the desire of 
the heart and its fulfilment, lies only the briefest 
space of time and distance, and yet the desire re- 
mains forever unfulfilled ! Kavanagh. 

Within her heart was his image, 
Clothed in the beauty of love and youth, as last she 

beheld him, 
Only more beautiful made by his death-like silence 

and absence. 
Into her thoughts of him, time entered not, for it 

was not. 
Over him years had no power ; he was not changed, 

but transfigured. Evangeline. 

138 



May 5. 



May 6. 



139 



May 7. 

A torn jacket is soon mended ; but hard words 
bruise the heart of a child. Drift-Wood. 

Ah ! what would the world be to us 
If the children were no more ? 

We should dread the desert behind us 
Worse than the dark before. Children. 

Life is the gift of God, and is divine. 
Emma and Eginhard, Tales of a Wayside Inn. 



May 8. 

It is recorded in the Adventures of Gil Bias de 
Santillana, that, when this renowned personage first 
visited the city of Madrid, he took lodgings ... in 
the Puerta del Sol. ... I followed, as far as prac- 
ticable, this illustrious example, . . . and my bal- 
conies looked down into . . . the heart of Madrid, 
through which circulates the living current of its 
population at least once every twenty-four hours. 

Outre-Mer. 

How like a ruin overgrown 

With flowers that hide the rents of time. 
Stands now the Past that I have known ; 
Castles in Spain, not built of stone 
But of white summer clouds, and blown 
Into this little mist of rhyme ! 

Castles in Spain. 
140 



May 7. 

Conde, 1530; G. V. Swieten, 1700. 



May 8. 

Le Sage, 1668; Dr. Porteus, 1731 



141 



May 9. 

I dislike an eye that twinkles like a star. Those 
only are beautiful which, like the planets, have a 
steady, lambent light. Hyperion. 

Maiden ! with the meek brown eyes, 
In whose orbs a shadow lies 
Like the dusk in evening skies ! 

Standing, with reluctant feet, 
Where the brook and river meet. 
Womanhood and childhood fleet. 

Hearest thou voices on the shore, 
That our ears perceive no more, 
Deafened by the cataract's roar ? 

Maidenhood. 

• 

May 10. 

lie laid the lesson to heart ; and it would have 
saved him many an hour of sorrow, if he had learned 
that lesson better, and remembered it longer. 

Hyperion. 

The robin, the forerunner of the spring, 
The bluebird with its jocund carolling. 
The restless swallows building in the eaves, 
The golden buttercups, the grass, the leaves. 
The lilacs tossing in the winds of May, 
All welcomed this majestic holiday ! 

Lady Wentworth, IVayside Inn. 
142 



May 9. 

G. Paisiello, 1741 ; Sismondi, 1773. 



May 10. 

Turgot, 1727; J. Sparks, 1789; Thierry, 1795. 



143 



May II. 

I confess, with all humility, that at times the 
line of demarcation between truth and fiction is 
rendered so indefinite and indistinct, that I cannot 
always determine, with unerring certainty, whether 
an event really happened to me, or whether I only 
dreamed it. Outre-Mer. 

Is this a dream ? Oh, if it be a dream, 
Let me sleep on, and do not wake me yet ! 

It is a dream, sweet child ! a waking dream, 
A blissful certainty, a vision bright 
Of that rare happiness, which even on earth 
Heaven gives to those it loves. 

The Spanish Student. 



May 12. 
His heart was full of indefinite longings, mingled 
with regrets ; longings to accomplish something 
worthy of life ; regret that as yet he had accom- 
plished nothing, but had felt and dreamed only. 
Thus the warm days in spring bring forth passion- 
flowers and forget-me-nots. Hyperion. 
Thoughts, like a loud and sudden rush of wing.s, 
Regrets and recollections of things past, 
With hints and i)rophecies of things to be. 
And inspirations, which, could they be things. 

And stay with us, and we could hold them fast, 
Were our good angels, — these I owe to thee. 
The Two Rivers, Sonnet III. 
144 



May II. 

p. Camper, 1722; J. F. Blumenbach, 1752; J. P. Hebel, 1760. 



May 12. 

Santeuil, 1630: J. Bell, 1763; R. C. Winthrop, 1809. 



145 



May 13. 

Music is the universal language of mankind, — 
poetry their universal pastime and delight. 

Outke-Mer. 
Fair they seemed, those songs sonorous, 

When they came to me unbidden ; 
Voices single, and in chorus, 
Like the wild-birds singing o'er us 
In the dark of branches hidden. 

Epimetheus. 
Her step was royal, — queen-like. 

The Spanish Student. 
•— 

May 14. 

" By the way," said the Baron, " did you mind 
what a curious head he has ? There are two crowns 
upon it." 

" That is a sign," replied Flemming, " that he 
will eat his bread in two kingdoms." 

" I think the poor man would be very thankful," 
said the Baron, with a smile, " if he were always 
sure of eating it in one ! " Hyperion. 

Thou hast a stout heart and strong hands. 
Thou canst supply thy wants ; what wouldst thou 

more ? The Spanish Student. 

Sweet is the air with the budding haws, and the 

valley stretching for miles below 
Is white with blossoming cherry-trees, as if just 
covered with lightest snow. 

The Golden Legend. 
146 



May 13. 

Maria Theresa, 1717; J. S. Dwight, 1813. 



May 14. 

Fahrenheit, 16S6; T. Dwight, 1752; R. Owen, 1770. 



147 



May 15. 

On every side comes up the fragrance of a thou- 
sand flowers, the murmur of innumerable leaves ; 
and overhead is a sky where not a vapor floats, — 
as soft, and blue, and radiant as the eye of child- 
hood ! Hyperion. 
There is in the air 
A fragrance, like that of the Beautiful Garden 
Of Paradise, in the days that were ! 
An odor of innocence and of prayer, 
And of love, and faith that never fails, 
Such as the fresh young heart exhales 
Before it begins to wither and harden ! 

The Golden Legend. 

May 16. 
Glorious indeed is the world of God around us, 
but more glorious the world of God within us. 
There lies the Land of Song ; there lies the poet's 
native land. Hyperion. 

The Land of Song within thee lies, 

Watered by living springs ; 
The lids of Fancy's sleepless eyes 
Are gates unto that Paradise, 
Holy thoughts, like stars, arise, 
Its clouds are angels' wings. 

Prelude to Voices of the Night- 
"Who walked with Nature hand in hand ; 
Whose country was their Holy Land. 

Interlude to the Landlord's Tale. 
148 



May 15. 



May 16. 

F. Ruckert, 1789; W. H. Seward, 1801. 



149 



May 17. 

" As for excellence, I can only desire it and dream 
of it ; I cannot attain to it ; it lies too far from me ; 
I cannot reach it. These very books about me 
here, that once stimulated me to action, have now 
become my accusers. They are my Eumenides, 
and drive me to despair." Kavanagh. 

I see, but cannot reach, the height 

That lies forever in the light. 

For Thine own purpose, Thou hast sent 
The strife and the discouragement. 

The Golden Legend. 



May 18. 

The May-flowers open their soft blue eyes. 
Children are let loose in the fields and gardens. 
They hold buttercups under each other's chins, to 
see if they love butter. And the little girls adorn 
themselves with chains and curls of dandelions, 
pull out the yellow leaves, to see if the schoolboy 
loves them, and blow the down from the leafless 
stalk to find out if their mothers want them at 
home. Hyperion. 

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, 
Her cheeks like the dawn of day, 
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds, 
That ope in the month of May. 

The Wreck oi-- the Hesperus. 



May 17. 



May 18. 



151 



May 19. 
It is curious to note the old sea-margins of hu- 
man thought ! Each subsiding century reveals 
some new myster}'. Kavanagh. 

Who dares 
To say that he alone has found the truth ? 

John Endicott, New England Tragedies. 
It comes, — the beautiful, the free, 
The crown of all humanity, — 
In silence and alone 
To seek the elected one. 

Endvmion. 

• — 

May 20. 
Art is the revelation of man ; and not merely 
that, but likewise the revelation of Nature, speak- 
ing through man. Art preexists in Nature, and 
Nature is reproduced in Art. Hyperion. 

Here, when Art was still religion, with a simple, 

reverent heart, 
Lived and labored Albrecht Diirer, the Evangelist 

of Art ; 
Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with 

busy hand, 
Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Bet- 
tor Land. 
Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone wUere 

he lies ; 
Dead he is not, but departed, — for the artist never 
dies. Nuremberg. 

152 



May 19. 

Fichte, 1762 ; J. Wilson, 1785; Mrs. Jameson, 1797. 



May 20. 

A. Diirer, 1471; Balzac, 1799; J. S. Mill, 1806. 



153 



May 21. 

We often excuse our own want of philanthropy 
by giving the name of fanaticism to the more ar- 
dent zeal of others. Drift-Wood. 
God sent his messenger of faith, 
And whispered in the maiden's heart, 
" Rise up, and look from where thou art, 
And scatter with unselfish hands 
Thy freshness on the barren sands 
And solitudes of Death." 

The Golden Legend, Epilogue. 

May 22. 

All that is best in the great poets of all countries 
is not what is national in them, but what is uni- 
versal. Their roots are in their native soil; but 
their branches wave in the unpatriotic air, that 
speaks the same language unto all men, and their 
leaves shine with the illimitable light that pervades 
all lands. Kavanagh. 

Thoughts in attitudes imperious. Prometheus. 
Turn, turn, my wheel ! Turn round and round 
Without a pause, without a sound : 

So spins the flying world away! 
This clay, well mixed with marl and sand. 
Follows the motion of my hand ; 
For some must follow, and some command. 

Though all are made of clay ! Keramos. 

154 



May 21. 

Lord Lyndhurst, 1772; S. Girard, 1750; Elizabeth Fry, 1780. 



May 22. 

Alexander Pope, i688. 



15s 



May 23. 

Toiling much, enduring much, fulfilling much. 

Hyperion. 
Patience is powerful. The Saga of King Olaf. 
This life of ours is a wild asolian harp of many a 

joyous strain, 
But under them all there runs a loud perpetual 
wail as of souls in pain. 

The Golden Legend. 
The lovely town was white with apple-blooms, 

And the great elms o'erhead 
Dark shadows wore on their aerial looms 
Shot through with golden thread. 

Hawthorne. 



May 24. 
The setting of a great hope is like the setting of 
the sun. The brightness of our life is gone. Shad- 
ows of evening fall around us, and the world seems 
but a dim reflection, — itself a broader shadow. 
We look forward into the coming lonely night. 
The soul withdraws into itself. Then stars arise, 
and the night is holy. Hyperion. 

For death, that breaks the marriage band 

In others, only closer pressed 
The wedding-ring upon her hand 

And closer locked and barred her breast. 
Vittoria Colonna. 
Noble by birth, yet nobler by great deeds. 

Emma and Eginhard- 
156 



May 23. 

J. Hunter, 1718; T. Hood, 1799; M. F. Tupper, 1810. 



May 24. 

Linnaeus, 1707; E. Hitchcock, 1793; Queen Victoria, 1819. 



157 



May 25. 

It has become a common saying, that men of 
genius are always in advance of their age ; which 
is true. There is something equally true, yet not 
so common ; namely, that, of these men of genius, 
the best and bravest are in advance not only of 
their own age, but of every age. Hyperion. 

Forevermore, forevermore, 
It shall be as it hath been heretofore ; 
The age in which they live 
Will not forgive 
• The splendor of the everlasting light 
That makes their foreheads bright, 
Nor the sublime 
Fore-running of their time ! 

The Divine Tragedy. 
Introitus. 
— ^_ 

May 26. 

Charles d'Orleans was taken prisoner at the bat- 
tle of Agincourt, in 141 5, and carried into Eng- 
land, where he remained twenty-five years in cap- 
tivity. It was there that he composed the greater 
part of his poetry. Outre-Mer. 

Gentle Spring ! in sunshine clad, 

Well dost thou thy power display ! 
For Winter maketh the light heart sad, 
And thou, thou makest the sad heart gay. 
Spring, Translated fro7n Charles d''Orlcaiis. 
158 



May 25. 

J. p. Smith, 1774; R. W. Emerson, 1803; Lord Lytton, 1806. 



May 26. 

Charles d'Orleans, 1391 ; Count Zinzendorf, 1700. 



159 



May 27. 
Oh ! how majestically they walk in history ; some 

like the siin . . . others wrapped in gloom, yet 

glorious as a night with stars ! Hyperion. 

Tuscan, that wanderest through the realms of gloom, 
With thoughtful pace, and sad, majestic eyes, 
Stern thoughts and awful from thy soul arise, 
Like Farinata from his fiery tomb. 

Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom ; 

Yet in thy heart what human sympathies, 

What soft compassion glows, as in the skies 

The tender stars their clouded lamps relume ! 

Dante. 
O star of morning and of liberty ! 

The voices of the city and the sea, 

The voices of the mountains and the pines. 
Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines 
Are footpaths for the thought of Italy ! 

DiVlNA COMMEDIA, VI. 

May 28. 
For awhile there was a breathless silence in the 
church which to Flemming was more solemnly im- 
pressive than any audible prayer. Hyperion. 
Ah, why shouldst thou be dead, when common men 
Are busy with their trivial affairs, 
Having and holding ? Why, when thou hadst read 
Nature's mysterious manuscript, and then 
Wast ready to reveal the truth it bears. 
Why art thou silent ? Why shouldst thou be dead ? 
Sonnet on Agassiz, Three Friends of Mine. 
160 



May 27. 

Dante Alighieri, 1265; J. W. Hiise, 1819. 



May 28. 

Lord Chatham, 1759; T. Moore, 1780; L. Agassiz, 1807. 



161 



May 29. 

Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm. Hyperion. 

Gathering still, as he went, the May-flowers bloom- 
ing around him, 

Fragrant, filling the air with a strange and wonder- 
ful sweetness. 

"Puritan flowers," he said, "and the type of Puri- 
tan maidens, 

Modest and simple and sweet, the very type of 
Priscilla ! " 

The Courtship of Miles Standish. 



May 30. 

We shall all meet again at the last roll-call. 

Outre-Mer. 
I see their scattered gravestones gleaming white 
Through the pale dusk of the impending night ; 
O'er all alike the impartial sunset throws 
Its golden lilies mingled with the rose ; 
Wc give to each a tender thought, and pass 
Out of the graveyards with their tangled grass. 

RIORITURI SaLUTAMUS. 

And the words break from his lips : 
" I am the builder of ships. 
And my ships shall sail these seas 
To the Pillars of Hercules ! 
I say it ; the White Czar, 

Batyushka ! Gosudar ! " 

The White Czar. 
162 



May 29. 

Patrick Henry, 1736; Gerald Massey, 1828. 



May 30. 

Decoration Day; Peter the Great, 1672; T. Mitchell, 1783. 



163 



May 31. 

As no saint can be canonized until the Devil's 
Advocate has exposed all his evil deeds, and showed 
why he should not be made a saint, so no poet can 
take his station among the gods until the critics 
have said all that can be said against him. 

Kavanagh. 

That delicious season when the coy and capri- 
cious maidenhood of spring is swelling into the 
warmer, riper, and more voluptuous womanhood 
of summer. Outre-Mer. 

Like the swell of some sweet tune. 
Morning rises into noon, 
May glides onward into June. 

Bear a lily in thy hand ; 

Gates of brass cannot withstand 

One touch of that magic wand. 

Maidenhood. 



164 



May 31. 

A. Ciuden, 1701; J. A. Andrew, iSiS ; Walt Whitman, 1819. 



165 



HOLIDAYS. 

The holiest of all holidays are those 
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart ; 
The secret anniversaries of the heart, ^ 
When the full river of feeling overflows ; — 

The happy days unclouded to their close ; 
The sudden joys that out of darkness start 
As flames from ashes ; swift desires that dart 
Like swallows singing down each wind that blows ! 

White as the gleam of a receding sail, 

Wniite as a cloud that floats and fades in air, 
White as the whitest lily on a stream, 

These tender memories are ; — a Fairy Tale 
Of some enchanted land we know not where, 
But lovely as a landscape in a dream. 



[66 



Sfw^ic. 



A DAY OF SUNSHINE. 

GIFT of God ! O perfect day : 
Whereon shall no man work, but play ; 
Whereon it is enough for me, 

Not to be doing, but to be ! 

Through every fibre of my brain. 
Through every nerve, through every vein, 

1 feel the electric thrill, the touch 
Of life, that seems ahnost too much. 

I hear the wind among the trees 
Playing celestial symphonies ; 
I see the branches downward bent. 
Like keys of some great instrument. 

And over me unrolls on high 
The splendid scenery of the sky, 
Where through a sapphire sea the sun 
Sails like a golden galleon, 

Towards yonder cloud-land in the West, 
Towards yonder Islands of the Blest, 
Whose steep sierra far uplifts 
Its craggy summits white with drifts. 

Blow, winds ! and waft through all the rooms 
The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms ! 
Blow, winds ! and bend within my reach 
The fiery blossoms of the peach ! 

O Life and Love ? O happy throng 
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song ! 
O heart of man ! canst thou not be 
Blithe as the air is, and as free ? 
167 



June i. 
What a time it is ! How June stands illuminated 
in the calendar ! The windows are all wide open ; 
only the Venetian blinds closed. Here and there a 
long streak of sunshine streams in through a crev- 
vice. We hear the low sound of the wind among 
the trees ; and, as it swells and freshens, the distant 
doors clap to, with a sudden sound. Hyperion. 
O flower-de-luce, bloom on, and let the river 

Linger to kiss thy feet ! 
O flower of song, bloom on, and make forever 
The world more fair and sweet. Flower-de-Luce. 
— • — 
June 2. 
Noiseless as a feather or a snow-flake falls, did 
her feet touch the earth. Hyperion. 

There is with him a damsel fair to see, 
As slender and graceful as a reed ! 
When she alighted from her steed, 
It seemed like a blossom blown from a tree. 
The Golden Legend. 
Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what we 

think, and in all things 
Keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sacred pro- 
fessions of friendship. 

The Courtship of Miles Standish. 

. . . The mirth 
Of this green earth 
Laughed and revelled in his line. 

Oliver Basselin. 
168 



June i. 

H. F. Lyte, 1793. 



June 2. 

Le Fevre, 1544; J. G. Saxe, 1816. 



L69 



June 3. 

Many sweet little poems are the outbreaks of 
momentary feelings ; — words to which the song of 
birds, the rustling of leaves, and the gurgle of cool 
waters form the appropriate music. Hyperion. 
Read from some humbler poet 

Whose songs gushed from his heart 
As showers from the clouds of summer, 
Or tears from the eyelids start. 

The Day is Done. 



June 4. 

The trees are heavy with leaves ; and the gardens 
full of blossoms, red and white. The whole at- 
mosphere is laden with perfume and sunshine. 
The birds sing. The cock struts about, and crows 
loftily. Insects chirp in the grass. Yellow butter- 
cups stud the green carpet like golden buttons, and 
the red blossoms of the clover like rubies. 

Hyperion. 

Something there was in her life incomplete, imper- 
fect, unfinished ; 
As if a morning of June, with all its music and sun- 
shine. 
Suddenly paused in the sky, and, fading, slowly 

descended 
Into the east again, from whence it late had arisen. 

Evangeline. 
170 



June 3. 

R. Tannaliill, 1774; Sir W. Ross, 1794; N. Macleod, 1S12. 



June 4. 



171 



June 5. 

What were the nations of old, without their phi- 
losophers, poets, and historians ? Hyperion. 

I have already 
The bitter taste of death upon my lips ; 
I feel the presence of the heavy weight 
That will crush out my life within this hour ; 
But if a word could save me, and that word 
Were not the truth ; nay, if it did but swerve 
A hair's-breadth from the truth, I would not say it ! 

How mean I seem beside a man like this ! 

New England Tragedies. 



June 6. 

The tragic element in poetry is like Saturn in 
alchemy, — the Malevolent, the Destroyer of Na- 
ture ; but without it no true Aurum Potabile, or 
Elixir of Life, can be made. Drift-Wood. 

Art is the child of Nature ; yes. 

Her darling child, in whom we trace 
The features of the mother's face. 

Her aspect and her attitude. Keramos. 

Far off I hear the crowing of the cocks, 
And through the opening door that time unlocks 
Feel the fresh breathing of To-morrow creep. 

To-morrow. 
172 



June 5. 

Socrates, 468 b. c. ; A. Smith, 1723. 



June 6. 

D. Velasquez, 1599", Corneille, 1606. 



173 



June 7. 
People drive out from town to breathe and to be 
happy. Most of them have flowers in their hands, 
bunches of apple-blossoms, and still oftener, lilacs. 

Hyperion. 
The doors are all wide open ; at the gate 
The blossomed lilacs counterfeit a blaze, 
And seem to warm the air ; a dreamy haze 
Hangs o'er the Brighton meadows like a fate, 
And on their margin, with sea-tides elate, 
The flooded Charles, as in the happier days. 
Writes the last letter of his name, and stays 
His restless steps, as if compelled to wait. 

Sonnet V. 

June 8. 
I first saw Venice by moonlight. ... A thousand 
lamps glittered from the square of St. Mark, and 
along the water's edge. Above rose the cloudy 
shapes of spires, domes, and palaces, emerging 
from the sea ; and occasionally the twinkling lamp 
of a gondola darted across the water like a shoot- 
ing star, and suddenly disappeared as if quenched 
in the wave. Outre-Mer. 

White water-lily, cradled and caressed 

By ocean streams, and from the silt and weeds 
Lifting thy golden filaments and seeds, 
Thy sun-illumined spires, thy crown and crest ! 
White phantom city, whose untrodden streets 
Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting 
Shadows of palaces and strips of sky. Venice. 
174 



June 7. 



June 8. 

Chiabrera, 1552. 



175 



June 9. 

Underneath . . . the good principles which would 
have taken root, had he given them time, there lay 
a strong and healthy soil of common sense, fresh- 
ened by living springs of feeling, Hyperion. 

Trained for either camp or court. 
Skilful in each manly sport. 

The Saga of King Olaf. 

Taste the joy 
That springs from labor. 

The Masque of Pandora. 



June 10. 

It is a beautiful morning in June ; — so beautiful, 
that I almost fancy myself in Spain. The tessel- 
lated shadow of the honey-suckle lies motionless 
upon the floor, as if it were a figure in the carpet ; 
and through the open window comes the fragrance 
of the wild-brier and the mock-orange, reminding 
me of that soft, sunny clime where the very air is 
laden, like the bee, with sweetness. Outre-Mer. 

How much of my young heart, O Spain, 

Went out to thee in days of yore ! 
What dreams romantic filled my brain, 
And summoned back to life again 
The paladins of Charlemngne 
The Cid Campeador ! 

Castles in Spain. 
176 



June 9. 



June 10. 

LordThurlow, 1781. 



177 



June ii. 

The lives of literary men, with their hopes and 
disappointments, and quarrels and calamities, pre- 
sent a melancholy picture of man's strength and 
weakness. Hyperion. 

Our little lives are kept in equipoise 
By opposite attractions and desires ; 

The struggle of the instinct that enjoys, 
And the more noble instinct that aspires. 

These perturbations, this perpetual jar 
Of earthly wants and aspirations high, 

Come from the influence of an unseen star, 
An undiscovered planet in our sky. 

Haunted Houses. 



June 12. 

It became more and more clear to him, that the 
life of man consists not in seeing visions, and in 
dreaming dreams, but in active charity and willing 
service. Kavanagh. 

The clashing of creeds, and the strife 
Of the many beliefs, that in vain 
Perplex man's heart and brain, 
Are naught but the rustle of leaves, 
When the breath of God upheaves 
The boughs of the Tree of Life. 

Finale to New England Tragedies. 
178 



June ii. 

Ben Jonsou, 1574; G. Wither, 1588; Sir K. Digby, 1603. 



June 12. 

Harriet Martineau, 1802 ; Canon Kingsley, 1819. 



179 



June 13. 

The school-room, the theatre of those life-long 
labors, which theoretically are the most noble, and 
practically the most vexatious, in the world. 

Kavanagh. 

He touched the lips of some, as best befit. 

With honey from the hives of Holy Writ ; 

Others intoxicated with the wine 

Of ancient history, sweet but less divine ; 

Some with the wholesome fruits of grammar fed ; 

Others with mysteries of the stars o'erhead. 

Gentle of speech, but absolute of rule. 

Emma and Eginhard, Tales of a Wayside Inn. 
For him the teacher's chair became a throne. 
Sonnet to Parker Cleaveland. 



June 14. 

If by incidents, you mean events in the history 
of the human mind, . . . noiseless events that do 
not scar the forehead of the world as battles do, 
yet change it not the less, then surely the lives of 
literary men are most eventful. Hyperion. 

All things above were bright and fair. 

All things were glad and free ; 
Lithe squirrels darted here and there, 
And wild birds filled the echoing air 
With songs of Liberty ! 

The Slave in the Dismal Swamp. _ 
180 



June 13. 

Madame D"Arblay, 1752; Thomas Arnold, 1795. 



June 14. 

T. Pennant, 1723; Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1812. 



181 



June 15. 

" How absolute," he exclaimed, " how absolute 
and omnipotent is the silence of the night ! And 
yet the stillness seems almost audible." 

Kavanagh. 

The night is calm and cloudless, 

And still as still can be, 
And the stars come forth to listen 

To the music of the sea. 
They gather, and gather, and gather, 

Until they crowd the sky. 

And listen, in breathless silence, 

To the solemn litany. 

The Golden Legend. 

But thou dost make the very night itself 
Brighter than day. The Divine Tragedy. 



June 16. 

Shall I thank God for the green summer, and 
the mild air, and the flowers and the stars, and all 
that makes the world so beautiful, and not for the 
good and beautiful beings I have known in it ? 

Hyperion. 

Oh ! though oft depressed and lonely, 

All my fears are laid aside. 
If I but remember only 

Such as these have lived and died. 

Footsteps of Angels. 
182 



June 15. 

T. Randolph, 1605 : A. Ludolf, 1624. 



June i6. 

Tauler, 1361 ; Sir J. Cheke, 1514. 



183 



June 17. 
In the mouths of many men soft words are like 
roses that soldiers put into the muzzles of their 
muskets on holidays. Drift-Wood. 

Now, as I said before, I was never a maker of 

phrases, 
I can march up to a fortress and summon the place 

to surrender, 
But march up to a woman with such a proposal, I 

dare not. 
I 'm not afraid of bullets, nor shot from the mouth 

of a cannon. 
But of a thundering ** No ! " point-blank from the 

mouth of a woman, 

That I confess I 'm afraid of, nor am I ashamed to 

confess it ! 

The Courtship of Miles Standish. 



June 18. 
The eye of age looks meekly into my heart ! the 
voice of age echoes mournfully through it ! the 
hoary head and palsied hand of age plead irresist- 
ibly for its sympathies ! Outre-Mer. 
Whatever poet, orator, or sage 
May say of it, old age is still old age. 

Age is opportunity no less 
Than youth itself, though in another dress. 
And as the evening twilight fades away 
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day. 

MORITURI SaLUTAMUS. 

184 



June 17. 

J. Wesley, 1703; Freiligrath, 1810. 



June i8. 

K. von Rotteck, 1775. 



1S5 



June 19. 
The birds are carolling in the trees, and their 
shadows flit across the window as they dart to and 
fro in the sunshine ; while the murmur of the bee, 
the cooing of doves from the eaves, and the whirr- 
ing of a little humming-bird that has its nest in the 
honeysuckle, send up a sound of joy to meet the 
rising sun. Outre-Mer. 

That book of gems, that book of gold, 
Of wonders many and manifold. 

Interlude before the Spanish Jew's Tale. 
The distant mountains, that uprear 
Their solid bastions to the skies, 
Are crossed by pathways, that appear 
As we to higher levels rise. 

The Ladder of St. Augustine. 



June 20. 
In this wondrous world wherein we live, which is 
the world of Nature, man has made to himself an- 
other world hardly less wondrous, which is the 
world of Art. Hyperion. 

How sweet the air is ! How fair the scene ! 
I wish I had as lovely a green 
To paint my landscapes and my leaves ! 

The Golden Legend. 
Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues. 

Flaunting gayly in the golden light ; 
Large desires, with most uncertain issues, 

Tender wishes, blossoming at night ! Flowers. 
186 



June 19. 

Confucius, 551 B. c ; Pascal, 1623; Lord Houghton, 



June 20. 

S. Rosa, 1615; A. Ferguson, 1724, 



[87 



June 21. 

-It would have been well if he could have forgot- 
ten the past, that he might not so mournfully have 
lived in it, but might have enjoyed and improved 
the present. Hyperion. 

There groups of merry children played, 
There youths and maidens dreaming strayed ; 

precious hours ! O golden prime, 
And affluence of love and time ! 
Even as a miser counts his gold. 

Those hours the ancient timepiece told, — 
" Forever — never ! 
Never — forever!" 

The Old Clock on the Stairs. 
♦ 

June 22. 
Overhead bends the blue sky, dewy and soft, and 
radiant with innumerable stars, like the inverted bell 
of some blue flower sprinkled with golden dust, and 
breathing fragrance. Hyperion. 

Stars of the summer night ! 
Far in yon azure deeps, 
Hide, hide your golden light ! 

She sleeps ! 
My lady sleeps ! 

Sleeps ! The Spanish Student. 

1 beseech you, for this once, be not loud, but 
pathetic ; for it is a serenade to a damsel in bed, 
and not to the Man in the Moon. Ibid. 

188 



June 21. 



June 22. 

J. Delille, 1738; T. Day, 1748; W. von Humboldt, 1767 



[89 



June 23. 

There is no scene over which my eye roves with 
more delight than the face of a summer landscape 
dimpled with soft sunny hollows, and smiling in all 
the freshness and luxuriance of June. 

Outre-Mer. 
And the morning pouring everywhere 
Its golden glory on the air. 

New England Tragedies. 
Interlude. 
Time has laid his hand 
Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it, 
But as a harper lays his open palm 
Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations. 

The Golden Legend. 
• 

June 24. 

Let us throw all the windows open ; let us admit 
the light and air on all sides ; that we may look 
towards the four corners of the heavens, and not 
always in the same direction. Kavanagh. 

The atmosphere 
In which the soul delights to be. 
And finds that perfect liberty. 
Which Cometh only from above. 
First Interlude to The Divine Tragedy. 

A noble type of good 
Heroic womanhood. 

Santa Filomena, 
190 



June 23. 

J. Fell, 1625. 



June 24. 

Empress Josephine, 1 76.1. 



191 



June 25. 

It was now that season of the year which an old 
English writer calls the amiable month of June, 
and at that hour of the day when, face to face, the 
rising moon beholds the setting sun. Hyperion. 

And silver white the river gleams, 
As if Diana, in her dreams, 

Had dropt her silver bow 

Upon the meadows low. 

On such a tranquil night as this. 

She woke Endymion with a kiss. 

When, sleeping in the grove. 

He dreamed not of her love. 

Endvmiok 
— ♦ — 

June 26. 

On the outside of the door Kavanagh had written 
the vigorous line of Dante, — 

" Think that To-day shall never dawn again ! " 

that it might always serve as a salutation and me- 
mento to him as he entered. Kavanagh. 

Do not delay : 
Do not delay ; the golden moments fly ! 

The Masque of Pandora 



192 



June 25. 

J. H. Tooke, 1736. 



June 26. 

p. Doddridge, 1702; G. Morland, 1763(1764)- 



193 



June 27. 

A mountain streamlet, overhung by woods, im- 
peded by a mill, encumbered by fallen trees, but 
ever racing, rushing, roaring down through gurgling 
gullies, and filling the forest with its delicious 
sound and freshness. Kavanagh. 

" Where are the kings, and where the rest 
Of those who once the world possessed ? 
They 're gone with all their pomp and show, 
They 're gone the way that thou shalt go." 

Haroun Al Raschid bowed his head : 
Tears fell upon the page he read. 

Haroun Al Raschid. 



June 28. 
" We must pardon much to men of genius. A 
delicate organization renders them keenly suscepti- 
ble to pain and pleasure. And then they idealize 
everything ; and, in the moonlight of fancy, even 
the deformity of vice seems beautiful." Hyperion. 
Thus by aspirations lifted, 

By misgivings downward driven, 
Human hearts are tossed and drifted 
Midway between earth and heaven. 

King Trisanku. 
How bleak and bare it is ! Nothing but mosses 
Grow on these rocks. Yet they are not forgotten ; 
Beneficent Nature sends the mists to feed them. 
The Golden Legend. 
194 



June 27. 

Charles XII., 1682. 



June 28. 

Rubens, 1577; Rousseau, 1712; F. W. Faber, 1814. 



195 



June 29. 

My life is given to others, and to this destiny I 
submit without a murmur ; for I have the satisfac- 
tion of having labored in my calling, and of having 
perhaps trained and incited others to do what I 
shall never do. Life is still precious to me for its 
many uses, of which the writing of books is but 
one. Kavanagh. 

Then a voice within his breast 
Whispered, audible and clear 
As if to the outward ear : 
" Do thy duty ; that is best ; 
Leave unto thy Lord the rest ! " 
The Legend Beautiful, Tales of a Wayside Inn. 



June 30. 

The tramp of horses' hoofs sounds from the 
wooden bridge. Then all is still, save the contin- 
uous wind of the summer night. Hyperion. 

I stood on the bridge at midnight, 
As the clocks were striking the hour, 

And the moon rose o'er the city, 
Behind the dark church-tower. 

I saw her bright reflection 
In the waters under me, 
Like a golden goblet falling 
And sinking into the sea. 

The Bridge. 
196 



June 29. 



June 30. 



197 



TO THE RIVER RHONE. 

Thou Royal River, born of sun and shower 
In chambers purple with the Alpine glow, 
Wrapped in the spotless ermine of the snow 
And rocked by tempests ! — at the appointed hour 

Forth, like a steel-clad horseman from a tower, 
With clang and clink of harness dost thou go 
To meet thy vassal torrents, that below 
Rush to receive thee and obey thy power. 

And now thou movest in triumphal march, 
A king among the rivers ! On thy way 
A hundred towns await and welcome thee ; 

Bridges uplift for thee the stately arch, 
Vineyards encircle thee with garlands gay, 
And fleets attend thy progress to the sea ! 



198 



1 




fulp. 



In the pleasant summer morning, 
Hiawatha stood and waited. 

All the air was full of freshness, 
All the earth was bright and joyous, 
And before him, through the sunshine. 
Westward toward the neighboring forest 
Passed in golden swarms the Ahmo, 
Passed the bees, the honey-makers, 
Burning, singing in the sunshine. 

Bright above him shone the heavens, 
Level spread the lake before him ; 
From its bosom leaped the sturgeon, 
Sparkling, flashing in the sunshine ; 
On its margin the great forest 
Stood reflected in the water, 
Every tree-top had its shadow, 
Motionless beneath the water. 

Hiawatha's Departure. 



199 



July i. 

Generations perish, like the leaves of the forest 
passing away when their mission is completed ; but 
at each succeeding spring, broader and higher 
spreads the human mind unto its perfect stature, 
unto the fulfilment of its destiny, unto the perfec- 
tion of its nature. Outre-Mer. 

Guarding the mountains around 

Majestic the forests are standing, 

Bright are their crested helms, 

Dark is their armor of leaves ; 

Filled with the breath of freedom 

Each bosom subsiding, expanding, 

Now like the ocean sinks, 

Now like the ocean upheaves. 

The Masque of Pandora. 



July 2. 

He was not yet in love, but very near it ; for he 
thanked God that he had made such beautiful be- 
ings to walk the earth. Hyperion. 
As thou sittest in the moonlight there. 
Its glory flooding thy golden hair, 
And the only darkness that which lies 
In the haunted chambers of thine eyes, 
I feel my soul drawn unto thee, 
Strangely and strongly, and more and more, 
As to one I have known and loved before. 

The Golden Legend. 



July i. 

Joseph Hall, 1574. 



July 2. 



July 3. 

The elm-trees reach their long, pendulous branches 
almost to the ground. White clouds sail aloft; and 
vapors fret the blue sky with silver threads. 

Hyperion. 

I will send a prophet to you, 

A deliverer of the nations, 

Who shall guide you and shall teach you, 

Who shall toil and suffer with you. 

If you listen to his counsels, 

You will multiply and prosper. Hiawatha. 



July 4. 

To such souls no age and no country can be ut- 
terly dull and prosaic. They make unto them- 
selves their age and country ; dwelling in the uni- 
versal mind of man, and in the universal forms of 
things. Drift-Wood. 

There in seclusion and remote from men 

The wizard hand lies cold. 
Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen, 

And left the tale half told. 

Ah ! who shall lift that wand of magic power, 

And the lost clew regain ? 
The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower 

Unfinished must remain ! Hawthorne. 

202 



July 3. 

Derzhavin, 1743. 



July 4. 

C. F. Gellert, 1715; A. Santa Clara, 1642. 



203 



July 5. 

In surveying a national literature, the point you 

must start from is national character. The most 

prominent trait in the French character is love of 

amusement and excitement, and — "I should say, 

rather, the fear of ennui," interrupted Flemming. 

Hyperion. 
Hereafter ? — And do you think to look 
On the terrible pages of that Book 

To find her failings, faults, and errors ? 
Ah, you will then have other cares, 
In your own shortcomings or despairs. 
In your own secret sins and terrors ! 

In the Churchyard at Cambridge. 
Thy voice 
Is a celestial melody, and thy form 
Self-poised as if it floated on the air ! 

The Masque of Pandora. 
• 

July 6. 

As vapors from the ocean, floating landward and 
dissolved in rain, are carried back in rivers to the 
ocean, so thoughts and the semblances of things 
that fall upon the soul of man in showers flow out 
again in living streams of Art, and lose themselves 
in the great ocean, which is Nature. Hyperion. 
All the hedges are white with dust, and the great 

dog under the creaking wain 
Hangs his head in the lazy heat, while onward the 

horses toil and strain. The Golden Legend. 
204 



July 5. 

S. Siddons, 1755 ; George Sand (Dudevant), 1S04. 



July 6. 

J. Flaxman, 1755. 



205 



July 7. 
This morning I visited the Alhambra ; an en- 
chanted palace, whose exquisite beauty baffles the 
power of language to describe. . . . Imagination 
itself is dazzled, — bewildered, — overpowered ! 

Outre-Mer. 
And there the Alhambra still recalls 

Aladdin's palace of delight : 
Allah il Allah ! through its halls 
Whispers the fountain as it falls, 
The Darro darts beneath its walls, 
The hills with snow are white. 

^ Castles in Spain. 

July 8. 
Her heart was a passion-flower, bearing within 

it the crown of thorns and the cross of Christ. 

Hvperion. 
On the cross the dying Saviour 

Heavenward lifts his eyelids calm, 
Feels, but scarcely feels, a trembling 

In his pierced and bleeding palm. 
And by all the world forsaken, 

Sees he how with zealous care 
At the ruthless nail of iron 

A little bird is striving there. 

And the Saviour speaks in mildness : 

" Blest be thou of all the good ! 

Bear, as token of this moment, 

Marks of blood and holy rood ! " 

The Legend of the Crossbill, 
Tr. from the Gcrimm o/Juliits Mo sen. 
206 



July 7. 

Earl of Arundel, 1592; Dr. Malan, 17S7; R. Schumann, 1810. 



July 8. 

La Fontaine, 1621; F. Halleck, 1795; Julius Mosen, 1803. 



207 



July 9. 

Wondrous strong are the spells of fiction ! 

Outre-Mer. ^ 
Beautiful was the night. Behind the black wall of 

the forest, 
Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon. 

On the river 
Fell here and there through the branches a tremu- 
lous gleam of the moonlight, 
Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and 

devious spirit. 
Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers 

of the garden 
Poured out their souls in odors, that were their 

prayers and confessions 
Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent 

Carthusian. Evangeline. 

July 10. 

A very strange, fantastic world ; where each one 
pursues his own golden bubble, and laughs at his 
neighbor for doing the same. I have been thinking 
how a moral Linnaeus would classify our race. 

Hyperion. 
Why seek to know ? 
Enjoy the merry shrove-tide of thy youth ! 
Take each fair mask for what it gives itself, 
Nor strive to look beneath it. 

The Spanish Student. 
• 208 



July 9. 

Ann Radcliffe, 1764; H. Hallam, 1777. 



July io. 

Sir W. Blackstone, 1722. 



209 



July ii. 

Many curious eyes watched them from the win- 
dows, many hearts grown cold or careless rekindled 
their household fires of love from the golden altar 
of God, borne through the streets by those pure 
and holy hands ! Kavanagh. 

O fortunate, O happy day, 
When a new household finds its place 
Among the myriad homes of earth, 
Like a new star just sprung to birth, 
And rolled on its harmonious way 
Into the boundless realms of space ! 

The Hanging of the Crane. 



July 12. 

There is a beautiful moral feeling connected with 
everything in rural life, which is not dreamed of in 
the philosophy of the city. Outre-Mer. 

You are a writer, and I am a fighter, but here is a 

fellow 
Who could both write and fight, and in both was 

equally skilful ! 

Truly a wonderful man was Caius Julius Caesar ! 
Better be first, he said, in a little Iberian village, 
Than be second in Rome, and I think he was right 
when he said it. 

The Courtship of Miles Standish. 
210 



July ii. 

J Q. Adams, 1767 



July 12. 

Julius Caesar, b. c. too; H. D. Thoreau, 1817- 



211 



July 13. 

They saw him daily moiling and delving in the 
common path, like a beetle, and little thought that 
underneath that hard and cold exterior, lay folded 
delicate golden wings, wherewith, when the heat of 
day was over, he soared and revelled in the pleas- 
ant evening air. Kavanagh. 

Who, through long days of labor, 

And nights devoid of ease, 
Still heard in his soul the music 

Of wonderful melodies. The Day is Done. 



July 14. 
In the life of every man there are sudden transi- 
tions of feeling which seem almost miraculous. 

Hyperion. 
As torrents in summer, 
Half dried in their channels, 
Suddenly rise, though the 
Sky is still cloudless, 
For rain has been falling 
Far off at their fountains ; 

So hearts that are fainting 
Grow full to o'erflowing, 
And they that behold it 
Marvel, and know not 
That God at their fountains 
Far off has been raining ! 
The Saga of King Olaf {The Nun of Nidaro^). 
212 



July 13. 

J. Clare, 1793; G Freytag, 1816. 



July 14. 



213 



July 15. 
Through the meadow winds the river, — careless, 
indolent. It seems to love the country, and is in 
no haste to reach the sea. The bee only is at work, 
— the hot and angry bee. All things else are at 
play ; he never plays, and is vexed that any one 
should. Hyperion. 

Very hot and still the air was, 
Very smooth the gliding river. 
Motionless the sleeping shadows. 

Hiawatha. 
I brought to man the fire 
And all its ministrations. My reward 
Hath been the rock and vulture. 

The Masque of Pandora. 
Figures in color and design 
Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine, 
Half darkness and half light. 

A Dutch Picture. 
♦ 

July 16. 
Their most striking peculiarity [ballads] . . . con- 
sists in the simple and direct expression of feeling 
which they contain. Outre-Mer. 

Full of hope and yet of heart-break. 
Full of all the tender pathos 
Of the Here and the Hereafter. Hiawatha. 
Speaking words of endearment where words of 
comfort availed not. Evangeline. 

214 



July 15. 

Galileo, 1564; Rembrandt, 1606. 



July i6. 

Sir J. Reynolds, 1723; Baroness Nairne, 1766. 



215 



July 17. 

The morning came ; the dear, delicious, silent 
Sunday ; to the weary workman, both of brain and 
hand, the beloved day of rest. Kavanagh. 

O day of rest ! How beautiful, how fair, 
How welcome to the weary and the old ! 
Day of the Lord ! and truce to earthly cares ! 
Day of the Lord, as all our days should be ! 
John Endicott, New England Tragedies. 



July 18. 

Painful indeed it is to be misunderstood and un- 
dervalued by those we love. But this, too, in our 
life, must we learn to bear without a murmur, for 
it is a tale often repeated. Hyperion. 

But the nearer the dawn, the darker the night, 
And by going wrong all things come right ; 
Things have been mended that were worse, 
And the worse, the nearer they are to mend. 
For the sake of the living and the dead. 
Thou shalt be wed as Christians wed, 
And all things come to a happy end. 
The Baron of St. Castine, Tales of a IVayside Inn. 



216 



July 17. 

Watts, 1674; Reland, 1676; M. F. Tupper, 1810. 



July i8. 

R. Hooke, 1635; Bettinelli, 1718. 



217 



July 19. 

The soul of man is audible, not visible. A sound 
alone betrays the flowing of the eternal fountain, 
invisible to man ! Hyperion. 

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart 

Across the school-boy's brain ; 
The song and the silence in the heart, 
That in part are prophecies, and in part 
Are longings wild and vain. 

And the voice of that fitful song 
Sings on, and is never still : 
"A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

My Lost Youth. 



July 20. 

Take from Italy such names as Dante, Petrarch, 
Boccaccio, Michael Angelo, and Raphael, and how 
much would be wanting to the completeness of her 
glory ! 

Not Aphrodite's self appeared more fair, 
When first upwafted by caressing winds 
She came to high Olympus, and the gods 
Paid homage to her beauty. Thus her hair 
Was cinctured ; thus her floating drapery 
Was like a cloud about her, and her face 
Was radiant with the sunshine and the sea. 
The Masque of Pandora- 
218 



July 19. 

Vorstius, 1623. 



July 20. 

Petrarch, 1304; J- Sterling, i8c6. 



219 



July 21. 

Those who bow down upon their knees to drink 
of these bright streams that water life are not 
chosen of God either to overthrow or to overcome ! 

Hyperion. 
ORIFEL. 

The Angel of the uttermost 

Of all the shining, heavenly host, 

From the far-off expanse 
Of the Saturnian, endless space 
I bring the last, the crowning grace, 
The gift of Tem]:)erance ! 

The Golden Legend. 
{ TJie A jigels of the Seven Planets. ) 

• 

July 22. 

As he walked, his step grew slower, and his heart 
calmer. The coolness and shadows of the great 
trees comforted and satisfied him, and he heard 
the voice of the wind as it were the voice of spirits 
calling around him in the air. Kavanagh. 

Ye voices, that arose 

After the Evening's close, 

And whispered to my restless heart repose ! 

Go, breathe it in the ear 

Of all who doubt and fear. 

And say to them, " Be of good cheer ! " L'Envoi. 

Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights. 
DiviNA Commedia, VL 
220 



July 21. 

Matthew Prior, 1664. 



July 22. 

Garibaldi, 1807. 



July 23. 
Oh, there is something sublime in calm endur- 
ance. Hyperion. 
How our hearts glowed and trembled as she read, 
Interpreting by tones the wondrous pages 
Of the great poet who foreruns the ages, 
Anticipating all that shall be said ! 
O happy Reader ! having for thy text 
The magic book, whose Sibylline leaves have caught 
The rarest essence of all human thought ! 
Sonnet on Mrs. Kemble's Readings from Shakespeare. 
« 

July 24. 
It was a glorious morning, and the sun rose up 
into a cloudless heaven, and poured a flood of 
gorgeous splendor over the mountain landscape, as 
if proud of the realm he shone upon. Outre-Mer. 
I, the friend of man, Mondamin, 
Come to warn you and instruct you, 
How by struggle and by labor 
You shall gain what you have prayed for. 

Hiawatha. 
As come the white sails of ships 

O'er the ocean's rage ; 
As comes the smile to the lips, 

The foam to the surge ; 
So come to the Poet his songs, 

All hitherward blown 
•From the misty realm that belongs 

To the vast Unknown. 

The Poet and His Songs. 
222 



July 23. 

N. L. Frothingham, 1793; Charlotte Cushman, 1816. 



July 24. 

J. Newton, 1725; J. P. Curran, 1750; J. G. Holland, 1819. 



223 



July 25. 

A beautiful girl, with flaxen hair, . . . and the 
form of a fairy in a midsummer night's dream, has 
just stepped out on the balcony beneath us ! See 
how coquettishly she crosses her arms upon the 
balcony, thrusts her dainty little foot through the 
bars, and plays with her slipper ! Outre-Mer. 

She has two eyes, so soft and brown. 

Take care ! 
She gives a side-glance and looks down, 

Beware ! Beware ! 

Trust her not, 
She is fooling thee ! 

Beware, From iJie German. 

Thou comest between me and those books too 
often ? The Spanish Student. 



July 26. 

In great cities we learn to look the world in the 
face. We shake hands with stern realities. 

D rift-Wood. 

In the world's broad field of battle, 

In the bivouac of Life, 
Be not like dumb, driven cattle ! 

Be a hero in the strife ! 

A Psalm of Life. 



224 



July 25. 

Elizabeth Hamilton, 1758. 



July 26. 



225 



July 27. 

At the court of Naples, v/hen the dead body of a 
monarch lies in state, his dinner is carried up to 
him as usual, and the court physician tastes it to see 
that it be not poisoned, and then the servants bear 
it out again, saying, " The king does not dine to- 
day." Hope in our souls is king ; and we also say, 
« The king never dies." Hyperion. 

I am the Angel of the Moon, 
Darkened to be rekindled soon 

Beneath the azure cope ! 
Nearest to earth, it is my ray 
That best illumes the midnight way, 
I bring the gift of Hope ! 

The Golden Legend. 
( The A 7igels of the Seven Planets.) 
♦ . 

July 28. 
Sultry grows the day and breathless ! The lately 
crowded street is silent and deserted — hardly a 
footfall. Outke-Mer. 

How beautiful is the rain ! 
After the dust and heat, 
In the broad and fiery street, 
In the narrow lane, 
How beautiful is the rain ! 
How it clatters along the roofs, 
Like the tramp of hoofs ! 
How it gushes and struggles out 
From the throat of the overflowing spout. 

Rain in Summer 
226 



July 27. 

Thomas Campbell, 



x^^^. 



July 28. 

J- Sannazaro, 145S. 



227 



July 29. 

His household gods were broken. He had no 
home. Hyperion. 

Yet oft I dream, that once a wife 
Close in my heart was locked, 
And in the sweet repose of life 
A blessed child I rocked. 

And when I see that lock of gold, 

Pale grows the evening-red ; 
And when the dark lock I behold 
I wish that I were dead. 

The Two Locks of Hair, 
TrnnsJated /roil the German of Pfizer. 

What else remains for me ? 

Youth, hope, and love : 
To build a new life on a ruined life. 

The Masque of Pandora. 

July 30. 
This journey is written in my memory with a 
sunbeam. We were a company whom chance had 
thrown together, — different in ages, humors, and 
pursuits, — and yet so merrily the days went by, in 
sunshine, wind, or rain, that methinks some lucky 
star must have ruled the hour that brought us five 
so auspiciously together. Outre-Mer. 

Never from my heart has faded quite 
Its memory, that, like a summer sunset, 
Encircles with a ring of purple light 
All the horizon of my youth. The Golden Legend. 
228 



July 29. 

Hiram Powers, 1S05 ; G. Pfizer, 1809. 



July 30. 

Samuel Rogers, 1763. 



229 



July 31. 

The same object, seen from three different points 
of view, — the Past, the Present, and the Future, — 
often exhibits three different faces to us ; like those 
sign-boards over shop-doors, which represent the 
face of a lion as we approach, of a man when we 
are in front, and of an ass when we have passed 

Kavanagh. 

Go to the damsel Priscilla, the loveliest maiden of 

Plymouth, 
Say that a blunt old Captain, a man not of words 

but of actions, 
Offers his hand and his heart, the hand and heart 

of a soldier, 

'T was but a dream, — let it pass, — let it vanish 

like so many others ! 
What T thought was a flower, is only a weed, and 

is worthless ! 

The Courtship of Miles Standish. 



230 



July 31, 



231 



WOODSTOCK PARK. 

Here in a little rustic hermitage 

Alfred the Saxon King, Alfred the Great, 
Postponed the cares of king-craft to translate 
The Consolations of the Roman sage. 

Here Geoffrey Chaucer, in his ripe old age 
Wrote the unrivalled Tales, which soon or late 
The venturous hand that strives to imitate 
Vanquished must fall on the unfinished page. 

Two kings were they, who ruled by right divine, 
And both supreme ; one in the realm of Truth, 
One in the realm of Fiction and of Song. 

WHiat prince hereditary of their line, 

Uprising in the strength and flush of youth, 
Their glory shall inherit and prolong ? 



232 



3llu0U^t. 



A SUMMER DAY BY THE SEA. 

The sun is set ; and in his latest beams 
Yon little cloud of ashen gray and gold, 
Slowly upon the amber air unrolled, 
The falling mantle of the Prophet seems. 

From the dim headlands many a light-house 
gleams, 
The street-lamps of the ocean ; and behold, 
O'erhead the banners of the night unfold ; 
The day hath passed into the land of dreams. 

O summer day beside the joyous sea ! 
O summer day so wonderful and white, 
So full of gladness and so full of pain ! 

Forever and forever shalt thou be 

To some the gravestone of a dead delight. 
To some the landmark of a new domain. 



'-33 



August i. 

The darkening foliage ; the embrowning grain ; 
the golden dragon-fly haunting the blackberry 
bushes ; the cawing crows, that looked down from 
the mountain on the cornfield, and waited day after 
day for the scarecrow to finish his work and depart ; 
and the smoke of far-off burning woods that pervaded 
the air and hung in purple haze about the summits 
of the mountain; — these were the avant-couriers 
and attendants of the hot August. Kavanagh. 

Ah, how bright the sun 
Strikes on the sea and on the masts of vessels, 
That are uplifted in the morning air, 
Like crosses of some peaceable crusade ! 

John Endicott, New England Tragedies. 
♦ 

August 2. 
I may not know the purpose of my being . . . but 
I do know that my being has a purpose in the om- 
niscience of my Creator, and that all my actions 
tend to the completion, to the full accomplishment 
of that purpose. Outre-Mer. 

To-morrow ! the mysterious, unknown guest, 
Who cries to me : " Remember Barmecide, 
And tremble to be happy with the rest." 
And I make answer : " I am satisfied ; 
I dare not ask ; I know not what is best ; 

God hath already said what shall betide." 

To-morrow. 

Thou hast the patience and the faith of Saints ! 
John Endicott, New England Tragedies. 
234 



August i. 

George Tickiior, 1791 ; Spitta, 1801 ; R. H. Dana, 1815, 



August 



235 



August 3. 

He told not to his friend the sorrow with which 
his heart was heavy, but kept it for himself alone. 
He knew that the time, which comes to all men, — 
the time to suffer and be silent, — had come to him 
likewise, and he spake no word. Oh, well has it 
been said, that there is no grief like the grief which 
does not speak ! Hyperion. 

We will be patient, and assuage the feeling 

We may not w^iolly stay ; 
By silence sanctifying, not concealing, 

The grief that must have way. Resignation. 
Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, 
and childlike. Evangeline. 



August 4. 
The thought springs heavenward from the soul 
. the imagination of the poet seems spiritualized. 

Outre-Mer. 
His song was of the summer-time, 
The very birds sang in his rhyme ; 
The sunshine, the delicious air. 
The fragrance of the flowers, were there ; 
And I grew restless as I heard, 
Restless and buoyant as a bird, 
Down soft, aerial currents sailing. 

Yielding and borne I know not where, 
But feeling resistance unavailing. 

The Golden Legend. 
236 



August 3. 

Earl Stanhope, 1753 ; W. Ware, 1797. 



• August 4. 

J. J. Scaliger, 1540; Percy Bysslic Shelley, 1792, 



237 



August 5. 

Like black hulks, the shadows of the great trees 
ride at anchor on the billowy sea of grass. I can- 
not see the red and blue flowers, but I know that 
they are there. Far away in the meadow gleams 
the silver Charles. Hypeeion. 

Thou hast taught me, Silent River ! 

Many a lesson, deep and long ; 
Thou hast been a generous giver ; 

I can give thee but a song. 
Oft in sadness and in illness, 

I have watched thy current glide, 
Till the beauty of its stillness 
Overflowed me, like a tide. 

To THE River Charles. 
♦ 

August 6. 

Beware of dreams ! Beware of the illusions of 
fancy ! Beware of the solemn deccivings of thy 
vast desires! Hyperion. 

Let not the illusion of thy senses 
Betray thee to deadly offences. 
Be strong ! be good ! be pure ! 

The Golden Legend- 
He was born at the break of day, 
When abroad the angels walk ; 
He hath listened to their talk, 
And he knoweth what they say. 
The Fugitive, Tartar So/ts:; f^- from prose of Chodsko. 



August 5- 



August 6. 

Malebranche, 1638; Fenelon, 1651. 



239 



August 7. 

Field, forest, hill and vale, fresh air, and the 
perfume of clover-fields and new-mown hay, birds 
singing, and the sound of village bells, and the 
moving breeze among the branches, — the beaut)' 
and quiet of the holy day of rest, — all, all in earth 
and air, breathed upon the soul like a benediction. 

Drift- Wood. 
Here runs the highway to the town ; 

There the green lane descends. 
Through which I walked to church with thee, 
O gentlest of my friends ! 

Thy dress was like the lilies. 

And thy heart as pure as they : 
One of God's holy messengers 

Did walk with me that day. 

A Gleam of Sunshine. 



August 8. 

The hand of man unconsciously inscribes upon 
all his works the sentence of imperfection, which 
the finger of the invisible hand wrote upon the wall 
of the Assyrian monarch. Outre-Mer. 

Labor with what zeal we will. 

Something still remains undone, 
Something uncompleted still 
Waits the rising of the sun. 

Something Left Undone. 
240 



August 7. 

C. Aquila, 148S; J. R. Drake, 1795. 



August 8. 

B. Silliman, 1779. 



24] 



August 9. 

I become aware of tl\e great importance, in a na- 
tion's history, of the individual fame of scholars 
and literary men. Hyperion. 

" Sing me a song divine, 
With a sword in every line, 

And this shall be thy reward." 
And he loosened the belt at his waist, 
And in front of the singer placed 
His sword. 

Then the Scald took his harp and sang, 
And loud through the music rang 

The sound of that shining word ; 
And the harp-strings a clangor made, 
As if they were struck with the blade 

Of a sword. The Saga of King Olaf. 
• 

August 10. 

How beautiful is this green world which we in- 
habit ! See, yonder, how the moonlight mingles 
with the mist. What a glorious night is this ! 

Hyperion. 
The rising moon has hid the stars ; 
Her level rays, like golden bars, 
Lie on the landscape green, 
With shadows brown between. Endymion. 
Ah ! would that thou wert stronger, or less fair. 
That they might fear thee more, or love thee less. 
To Italy, From Filicaja. 
242 



August 9. 

John Drydeii, 1631 



August io. 

Count Cavour, 1810. 



243 



August ii. 

The piny odors in the night air, the soHtary light 
at her father's window, the familiar bark of the dog 
Major at the sound of the wheels, awakened feel- 
ings at once new and old. A sweet perplexity of 
thought, a strange familiarity, a no less pleasing 
strangeness ! Kavanagh. 

The well-remembered odor 
Comes wafted unto me, and takes me back 
To other days. Judas Maccabeus. 



August 12. 

Every great poem is in itself limited by necessity, 
■but in its suggestions, unlimited and infinite. 

Drift-Wood. 

Ah ! if thy fate, with anguish fraught, 
Should be to wet the dusty soil 
With the hot tears and sweat of toil, — 
To struggle with imperious thought, 
Until the overburdened brain. 
Weary with labor, faint with pain, 
Like a jarred pendulum, retain 
Only its motion, not its power, — 
Remember, in that perilous hour, 
When most afflicted and oppressed, 
From labor there shall come forth rest. 

To A Child. 



244 



August ii. 

J. Nollekins, 1737; J. V. Moreau, 1763. 



August 12. 

Robert Southey, 1774. 



245 



August 13. 

I am ; thou art ; he is ! seems but a school-boy's 
conjugation. But therein lies a mysterious mean- 
ing. We behold all round about us one vast union, 
in which no man can labor for himself, without la- 
boring at the same time for all others, 

Hyperion. 

Whene'er a noble deed is wrought, 

Whene'er is spoken a noble thought, 

Our hearts, in glad surprise, 

To higher levels rise. 

Santa Filomena. 



August 14. 

" You do not certainly mean to deny the influ- 
ence of scenery on the mind ? " 

" No, only to deny that it can create genius. 
At best, it can only develop it. Switzerland has 
produced no extraordinary poet ; nor as far as I 
know, have the Andes, or the Himalaya moun- 
tains, or the Mountains of the Moon in Africa." 

Kavanagh. 

Look, then, into thine heart, and write ! 

Yes, into Life's deep stream ! 
All forms of sorrow and delight. 
All solemn Voices of the Night, 
That can soothe thee, or affright, — 
Be these henceforth thy theme. 

Prelude to Voices of the Nic#t. 
246 



August 13. 

Lavoisier, 1743- 



August 14. 

Letitia E. Landon, 1802. 



247 



August 15. 
It seems as natural to make tales out of tumble- 
down traditions, as canes and snuff-boxes out of 
old steeples, or trees planted by great men. 

Drift-Wood. 
He loved the twilight that surrounds 
The border-land of old romance ; 
Where glitter hauberk, helm, and lance. 
And banner waves, and trumpet sounds, 
And ladies ride with hawk on wrist, 
And mighty warriors sweep along. 
Magnified by the purple mist, 
The dusk of centuries and of song. 

Prelude to Tales of a Wayside Inn. 
It was no dream ; the world he loved so much 
Had turned to dust and ashes at his touch ! 
King Robert of Sicily, Tales of a Wayside Inn. 
♦ 

August 16. 
Henceforth be mine a life of action and reality ! 
I will work in my own sphere, nor wish it other 
than it is. This alone is health and happiness. 
This alone is Life. Hyperion. 

Toiling, — rejoicing, — sorrowing, 

Onward through life he goes ; 
Each morning sees some task begin. 

Each evening sees it close ; 
Something attempted, something done. 
Has earned a night's repose. 

The Village Blacksmith. 
248 



August 15. 

R. Blakfe, 1599 ; Napoleon Bonaparte, 1769 ; Walter Scott, 1771 



August i6. 

Pierre Mechain, 1744. 



249 



August 17. 

Day, panting with heat, and laden with a thou- 
sand cares, toils onward like a beast of burden ; 
but Night, calm, silent, holy Night, is a ministering 
angel that cools with its dewy breath the toil-heated 
brow ; and, like the Roman sisterhood, stoops down 
to bathe the pilgrim's feet. Outke-Mer. 

I felt her presence, by its spell of might, 

Stoop o'er me from above ; 
The calm, majestic presence of the Night, 
As of the one I love. Hymn to the Night. 



August 18. 

It was as if the authors themselves were gazing 
at him from the walls, with countenances neither 
sorrowful nor glad, but full of calm indifference to 
fate, like those of the poets who appeared to Dante 
in his vision, walking together on the dolorous 
iihore. Kavanagh. 

A poet, too, was there, whose verse 

Was tender, musical, and terse ; 

The inspiration, the delight. 

The gleam, the glory, the swift flight, 

Of thoughts so sudden, t' at they seem 

The revelations of a dream, 

All these were his ; but with them came 

No envy of another's fame. 

Prelude to Tales of a Wayside Inn. 
250 



August 17. 

Thomas Stothaid, 1755 



August i8. 

Earl Russell, 1792; Thomas W. Parsons, iSig. 



251 



August 19. 

To say the least, a town life makes one more 
tolerant and liberal in one's judgment of others. 
One is not eternally wrapped up in self-contempla- 
tion, which, after all, is only a more holy kind of 
vanity. Hyperion. 

" I hate the crowded town ! 
I cannot breathe shut up within its gates ! 
Air, — I want air, and sunshine, and blue sky, 
The feeling of the breeze upon my face. 
The feeling of the turf beneath my feet, 
And no walls but the far-off mountain-tops." 
The Spanish Student. 
Like the river, swift and clear, 
Flows his song through many a heart. 

Oliver Basselin. 



August 20. 

From the hand of a man of genius. Everything 
, . has the freshness of morning and of May. 

Drift-Wood. 

Thou art the Muse, who far from crowded cities 

Hauntest the sylvan streams, 

Playing on pipes of reed the artless ditties 

That come to us as dreams. 

Flower-de-Luce. 

Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining. 
Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day. 

Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining, 
Buds that open only to decay. Flowers. 

252 



August 19. 

Mendoza, 1398; Beranger, 1780; S. G. Goodrich, 1793. 



August 20. 

Robert Herrick, 1591. 



253 



August 21. 

From the neighboring villages came the solemn, 
joyful sounds, floating through the sunny air, mel- 
low and faint and low, all mingling into one harmo- 
nious chime like the sound of some distant organ 
in heaven. Hyperion. 

Through the closed blinds the golden sun 

Poured in a dusty beam, 
Like the celestial ladder seen 

By Jacob in his dream. 
And ever and anon, the wind, 

Sweet-scented with the hay, 
Turned o'er the hymn-book's fluttering leaves 

That on the window lay. a Gleam of Sunshine. 
He who followeth Love's behest 

Far excelleth all the rest. 

The Building of the Ship. 

• 

August 22. 

His heart was like the altar of the Israelites of 

old ; and, though drenched with tears, as with rain, 

it was kindled at once by the holy fire from heaven ! 

Hyperion. 

The sick man from his chamber looks 

At the twisted brooks ; 

He can feel the cool 

Breath of each little pool ; 

His fevered brain 

Grows calm again, 

And he breathes a blessing on the rain. 

Rain in Summer 
254 



August 21. 

J. Crichton, 1561 ; F. de Sales, 1567; Michelet, 1798- 



August 22. 

J. K. Paulding, 1779. 



255 



August 23. 
Glorious scene ! one glance at thee would move 
the dullest soul — one glance can melt the painter 
and the poet into tears. Outre-Mer. 

Sweet vision ! Do not fade away ; 
Linger until my heart shall take 
Into itself the summer day, 
And all the beauty of the lake. 

Cadenabbia. 
" Come, wander with me," she said, 

" Into regions yet untrod ; 
And read what is still unread 
In the manuscripts of God." 

The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz. 
• 

August 24. 
Continually and ever with more distinctness, 
arose in his memory the tradition of Saint Christo- 
pher — the beautiful allegory of humility and labor. 

Kavanagh. 
Poor, sad Humanity, 
Through all the dust and heat 
Turns back with bleeding feet, 
By the weary road it came, 
Unto the simple thought 
By the Great Master taught, 
And that remaineth still : 
Not he that repeateth the name, 

But he that doeth the will ! 

Finale to New England Tragedies. 
256 



August 23. 

Sir Astley Cooper, 176S ; Cuvier, 1769. 



August 24. 

W. Wilberforce, 1759; Theodore Parker, 1810. 



557 



August 25. 

Just at my feet lay a little silver pool, with the 
sky and the woods painted in its mimic vault, and 
occasionally the image of a bird, or the soft, watery 
outline of a cloud, floating silently through its 
sunny hollows. The water-lily spread its broad, 
green leaves on the surface, and rocked to sleep a 
little world of insect life in its golden cradle. 

Ol'tre-Mer. 
There is a quiet spirit in these woods, 
That dwells where'er the gentle south-wind blows ; 

With what a tender and impassioned voice 
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought ! 

The Spirit ok Poetry. 

• 

August 26. 

One by one the objects of our affection depart 
from us. But our affections remain, and like vines 
stretch forth their broken, wounded tendrils for 
support. 

Something the heart must have to cherish, 

Must love and joy and sorrow learn, 
Something with passion clasp, or perish, 
And in itself to ashes burn. 

Forsaken. From the German. 
" A fine morning." 
" Nothing 's the matter with it that I know of. 
I have seen better, and I have seen worse." 

John Endicott, Ne'rv England Tragedies. 
258 



August 25. 

C. E. L. Camus, 1699; Herder, 1744. 



August 26. 

Sir R. Walpole, 167J. 



'69 



August 27. 
It vas a bright, beautiful morning after night- 
rain. Ever}' dew-drop and rain-drop had a whole 
heaven within it ; and so had the heart of Paul 
P'lemming. Hyperion. 

There was no moment's space 
Between my seeing thee and loving thee. 
Oh, what a tell-tale face thou hast ! Again 
I see the wonder in thy tender eyes. 

The Masque of Pandora. 
» 

August 28. 
Only think of his [Goethe's] life ; his youth of pas- 
sion, alternately aspiring and desponding, stormy, 
impetuous, headlong ; his romantic manhood, in 
which passion assumes the form of strength ; assid- 
uous, careful, loiling without haste, without rest ; 
and his sublime old age — the age of serene and 
classic repose ! . . . I affirm that with all his errors 
and shortcomings, he was a glorious specimen of a 
man. Hyperion. 

Thou that from the heavens art. 
Every pain and sorrow stillest, 
And the doubly wretched heart 

Doubly with refreshment fillest, 
I am weary with contending ! 

Why this rapture and unrest .'' 
Peace descending 

Come, ah, come into my breast ! 
Wanderer's Night-Songs, Tr. from Goethe. 
260 



August 2.7. 

W. Woo'.let, 1735; C. W. F. Negel, 1770; Niebuhr, 1776. 



' August 28. 

John Locke, 1632; Goethe, 1749. 



August 29. 

Fame comes only when deserved, and then it is 
as inevitable as destiny. Hyperion. 

God send his Singers upon earth 

With songs of sadness and of mirth, 
That they might touch the hearts of men, 
And bring them back to heaven again. 

The Singers. 
. . . Songs of that high art 
Which, as winds do in the pine. 
Find an answer in each heart. 

Oliver Basselin. 



August 30. 

In the morning Kavanagh sallied forth to find 
the Fairmeadow of his memory, but found it not. 

Kavanagh. 

From the outskirts of the town, 
Where of old the mile-stone stood. 

Now a stranger, looking down 

I behold the shadowy crown 
Of the dark and haunted wood. 

Is it changed, or am I changed .'' 

Ah ! the oaks are fresh and green, 
But the friends with whom I ranged 
Through their thickets are estranged 
By the years that intervene. Changed. 
262 



August 29. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1809. 



August 30. 



263 



August 31. 

The vast cathedral of Nature is full of holy scrip- 
tures, and shapes of deep, mysterious meaning, but 
all is solitary and silent there ; no bending knee, 

no uplifted eye, no lip adoring, praying. 

Hyperion. 

Like two cathedral towers these stately pines 
Uplift their fretted summits tipped with cones ; 
The arch beneath them is not built with stones, 
Not Art but Nature traced these lovely lines, 

And carved this graceful arabesque of vines ; 
No organ but the wind here sighs and moans, 
No sepulchre conceals a martyr's bones, 
No marble bishop on his tomb reclines. 

Enter ! the pavement, carpeted with leaves, 
Gives back a softened echo to thy tread ! 
Listen ! the choir is singing ; all the birds, 

In leafy galleries beneath the eaves. 

Are singing ! listen, ere the soiyid be fled, 
And learn there may be worship without words. 

Mv Cathedral. 



264 



August 31. 

Cliarles Lever, iSo6. 



265 



SLEEP. 

Lull me to sleep, ye winds, whose fitful sound 
Seems from some faint ^olian harp -string 

caught ; 
Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thought 
As Hermes with his lyre in sleep profound 

The hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound ; 
For I am weary, and am overwrought 
With too much toil, with too much care dis^ 

traught, 
And with the iron crown of anguish crowned. 

Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and cheek, 

peaceful Sleep ! until from pain released 

1 breathe again uninterru])ted breath ! 

Ah, with what subtile meaning did the Greek 
Call thee the lesser mystery at the feast 
Whereof the greater mystery is death ! 



266 



^cj^tcmbct. 



AUTUMN. 

Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain, 
With banners, by great gales incessant fanned, 
Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand, 
And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain ! 

Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne, 
Upon thy bridge of gold ; thy royal hand 
Outstretched with benedictions o'er the land, 
Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain ! 

Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended 
So long beneath*the heaven's o'erhanging eaves ; 
Thy steps are by the farmer's prayers attended ; 

Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves ; 
And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid, 
Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden 
leaves ! 



267 



September i. 
Over warm uplands, smelling of clover and mint ; 
through cool glades, still wet with the rain of yes- 
terday; along the river; across the rattling and 
tilting planks of wooden bridges; by orchards ; by 
the gates of fields, with the tall mullen growing at 
the bars ; by stone walls overrun with privet and 
barberries ; in sun and heat, in shadow and cool- 
ness, — forward drove the happy party. 

Kavanagh. 
This memory brightens o'er the past, 

As when the sun, concealed 
Behind some cloud that near us hangs, 
Shines on a distant field. 

A Gleam of Sunshine. 
With the beauty of his mother, 
With the courage of his father. 

Hiawatha. 

September 2. 
The superiority of one [grave] over another is in 
the nobler and better emotions which it excites ; in 
its more fervent admonitions to virtue ; in the live- 
lier recollection which it awakens of the good and 
the great, whose bodies are crumbling to dust be- 
neath our feet ! Outre-Mer. 
And the inward voice was saying : 
" Whatsoever thing thou doest 
To the least of mine and lowest. 
That thou doest unto me ! " 

The Legend Beautiful. 
268 



September i. 

Alleyn, 1566; Countess of Bless'nglon, lySg; Sigourney, 1791. 



September 2. 

John Howard, 1726; Lant Carpenter, 1780; Rosen, 1805. 



269 



September 3. 
There are times when my soul is restless, and a 
voice sounds within me like the trump of the arch- 
angel, and thoughts that were buried long ago come 
out of their graves. At such times, my favorite 
occupations and pursuits no longer charm me. The 
quiet face of Nature seems to mock me. 

Hyperion. 
How often, oh how often, 

I had wished that the ebbing tide 
Would bear me away on its bosom 
O'er the ocean wild and wide ! 

For my heart was hot and restless, 

And my life was full of care, 
And the burden laid upon me 

Seemed greater than I could bear. 

The Bridge. 



September 4. 
When we reflect that all the aspects of Nature, 
all the emotions of the soul, and all the events of 
life, have been the subjects of poetry for hundreds 
and thousands of years, we can hardly wonder that 
there should be so many resemblances, and coinci- 
dences of expression among poets, but rather that 
they are not more numerous and striking. 

Drift-Wood. 
World-wide apart, and yet akin. 
As showing that the human heart 
Beats on forever as of old. 
Interlude before Elizabeth, Tales of a Wayside I iin 
270 



September 3. 

Sir John Soane, 1753. 



September 4. 

Pindar, 520 b. c. ; Chateaubriand, 1769; Phoebe Gary, 1824 



271 



September 5. 

Man is begotten in delight and born in pain, and 
in these are the rapture and labor of his life fore- 
shadowed from the beginning. Hyperion. 
Thou mighty Prince of Church and State, 
Richelieu ! until the hour of death, 
Whatever road man chooses. Fate 
Still holds him subject to her breath. 
Spun of all silks, our days and nights 
Have sorrows woven with delights; 
And of this intermingled shatle 
Our various destiny appears, 
Even as one sees the course of years 
Of summers and of winters made. 

To Cardinal Richelieu. From Malherbe. 



September 6. 

If this genius is to find any expression, it must 
employ art ; for art is the external expression of 
our thoughts. Kavanagh. 

Here in seclusion, as a widow may. 
The lovely lady whiled the hours away, 
Pacing in sable robes the statued hall. 
Herself the stateliest statue among all. 
And seeing more and more, with secret joy. 
Her husband risen and living in her boy. 

The Falcon of Ser Federigo. 
Great of heart, magnanimous, courtly, courageous. 
The Courtship of Miles Standish. 



September 5. 

Richelieu, 1585; Louis XIV., 163S: C. M. Wieland, 1733. 



September 6. 

Marquis de Lafayette, 1757; Horatio Greenough, 1S05. 



273 



SeptEiMber 7. 

Towards morning he fell asleep, exhausted with 
the strong excitement ; and, in that hour, when, 
sleep being " nigh unto the soul," visions are deemed 
prophetic, he dreamed. O blessed vision of the 
morning, stay ! thou wast so fair ! Hyperion. 

" Do you believe in dreams ? " 

" Why, yes and no. 

When they come true, then I believe in them ; 

When they come false, I don't believe in them." 
Giles Corey. New England Tragedies. 

Monarchs, the powerful and the strong, 
Famous in history and in song. 

CopLAS de Manrique, Tr.from the Spanish. 

♦ 

September 8. 

Our passions never wholly die ; but in the last 
cantos of life's romantic epos, they rise up again 
and do battle, like some of Ariosto's heroes, who 
have already been quietly interred, and ought to be 
turned to dust. Kavanagh. 

All thought and feeling and desire, I said. 
Love, laughter, and the exultant joy of song 
Have ebbed from me forever ! Suddenly o'er 
me 
They swept again from their deep ocean bed, 
And in a tumult of delight, and strong 

As youth, and beautiful as youth, upbore me. 

The Tides. 
274 



September 7. 

Elizabeth, 1533; Buffon, 1707. 



September 8. 

Ariosto, 1474; J. Leyden, 1775. 



^1^ 



September 9. 
With a feeling of infinite relief, he left behind 
him the empty school-house, into which the hot 
sun of a September afternoon was pouring. All 
the fresh voices, shrill, but musical with the melody 
of childhood, were gone ; and the lately busy realm 
was given up to silence, and the dusty sunshine 
and the old gray flies that buzzed and bumped their 
heads against the window-panes, Kavanagh. 

Not too proud 
To teach in schools of little country towns 
Science and song, and all the arts that please. 
The Descent of the Muses. 
Born in the purple, born to joy and pleasance. 

Thou dost not toil nor spin, 
But makest glad and radiant with thy presence 
The meadow and the lin. Flower-de-Luce. 

♦ 

September 10. 
Believe me, every man has his secret sorrows, 
which the world knows not ; and oftentimes we 
call a man cold when he is only sad. Hyperion. 
1 have read, in the marvellous heart of man, 

That strange and mystic scroll, 
That an army of phantoms vast and wan 
Beleaguer the human soul. 

The Beleaguered City. 
Youths, who in their strength elate 
Challenge the van and front of fate. 

The Hanging of the Crane. 
276 



September 9. 

L. Galvani, 1737; R- C Trench, i 07. 



September io. 

Mungo Park, 1771. 



277 



September ii. 
The greatest works of his [man's] handicraft 
delight me hardly less than the greatest works of 
Nature. They are " the masterpieces of her own 
masterpiece." Drift-Wood. 

Morn on the mountain, like a summer bird, 
Lifts up her purple wing, and in the vales 
The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer, 
Kisses the blushing leaf. Autumn. 

Thou driftest gently down the tides of sleep. 

To A Child. 

September 12. 

** I like," said he, " after a long day's march, to 

lie down in this way upon the grass, and enjoy the 

cool of the evening. It reminds me of the bivouacs 

of other days, and of old friends who are now up 

there." Here he pointed with his finger to the 

sky. . . . Outre-Mer. 

He is dead, the beautiful youth. 

The heart of honor, the tongue of truth, 

He, the life and light of us all, 

Whose voice was blithe as a bugle-call, 

Whom all eyes followed with one consent, 

The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word, 

Hushed all murmurs of discontent. 

Killed at the Ford. 

Thy finer sense perceives 
Celestial and perpetual harmonies. 

The Golden Legend. 
278 



September ii- 

Pierre de Ronsard, 1524; Lowth, 1661 ; James Thomson, 1700. 



September 12. 

Rameau, 16S3 ; J- H. G. Stilling, 1740. 



279 



September 13. 
When he emerged from the black woodlands 
into the meadows by the river's side, all his cares 
were forgotten. Kavanagh. 

If thou art worn and hard beset 
With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget, 
If tliou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep 
Thy heart frgm fainting and thy soul from sleep, 
Go to the woods and hills ! No tears 
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears. 

Sunrise on the Hills. 
Grave in his aspect and attire, 
A man of ancient pedigree. 

Prelude to Tales of a Wayside Inn. 
• 

September 14. 

With many readers, brilliancy of style passes for 

affluence of thought. Drift-Wood. 

And liked the canter of the rhymes, 

That had a hoofbeat in their sound. 

Interlude before "The Mother's Ghost,'' JVuyside Inn. 

Then from a neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, 

wildest of singers, 
Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the 

water. 
Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious 

music. 
That the whole air and the woods and the waves 

seemed silent to listen. Evangeline. 

He the mightiest among many. Hiawatha. 

280 



September 13. 



September 14. 

Wallenstein, 15S3 ; A. von Humboldt, 1769 ; H. Coleridge, 1796. 



281 



September 15. 
The free and spirited touches of a master's hand 
are recognized in all. Outre-Mer. 

The father sat and told them tales 
Of wrecks in the great September gales, 
Of pirates coasting the Spanish Main, 
And ships that never came back again. 

The Building of the Ship. 
Through the cloud-rack, dark and trailing 
Must they see above them sailing 
O'er life's barren crags the vulture ? 

Prometheus. 
Sensitive, swift to resent, but as swift in atoning for 
error. The Courtship of Miles Standish. 



September 16. 
She was like Guercino's Sibyl, with the scroll of 
fate and the uplifted pen ; and the scroll she held 
contained but three words, — three words that con- 
trolled the destiny of a man, and, by their soft im- 
pulsion, directed forevermore the current of his 
thoughts. They were, — " Come to me ! " 

Kavanagh. 

So these lives that had run thus far in separate 

channels. 
Coming in sight of each other, then swerving and 

flowing asunder, 
Parted by barriers strong, but drawing nearer and 

nearer, 
Rushed together at last, and one was lost in the 

other. The Courtship of Miles Standish. 
282 



September 15. 

J F. Cooper, 1789; J. G. Percival, 1795. 



September i6. 



283 



September 17. 

** Why has heaven given me these affections, 

only to fall and fade ? " Hyperion. 

Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was 
wasted ; 

If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, re- 
turning 

Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them 
full of refreshment ; 

That which the fountain sends forth returns again 
to the fountain. Evangeline. 
♦ 

September 18. 
" Bitter as Juvenal ! " " Not in the least bitter. 
... It is all true." Hyperion. 

His form is the form of a giant, 

But his face wears an aspect of pain ; 
Can this be the Laird of Inchkenneth ? 

Can this be Sir Allan McLean ? 
Ah, no ! It is only the Rambler, 

The Idler, who lives in Bolt Court, 
And who says, were he Laird of Inchkenneth, 
He would wall himself round with a fort. 
A Wraith in the Mist. 
There never was so wise a man before ; 
He seemed the incarnate " Well, I told you so ! " 
The Birds of Killingworth, Ta/es of a Wayside Inn. 
Though he was rough, he was kindly. 

The Courtship of Miles Standish. 
284 



September 17. 

G. W. Rabener, 1714; Condorcet, 1743; John Foster 1770. 



September i8. 

Bishop Burnet, 1643; S. Johnson. 1769; J. Story, 1779. 



28s 



September 19. 

How indescribably beautiful this brown water is ! 
... It is like wine, or the nectar of the gods of 
Olympus ; as if the falling Hebe had poured it 
from the goblet. Kavanagh. 

Beautiful in form and feature, 

Lovely as the day, 
Can there be so fair a creature 
Formed of common clay ? 

The Masque of Pandora. 
Pondering much and much contriving 
How the tribes of men might prosper. 

Hiawatha. 
• 

September 20. 

Believe me, upon the margin of celestial streams 
alone those simples grow which cure the heart- 
ache ! Hyperion. 
That 't is a common grief 
Bringeth but slight relief ; 
Ours is the bitterest loss, 
Ours is the heaviest cross. 

The Chamber over the Gate. 
Let us be patient ! These severe afflictions 

Not from the ground arise, 
But oftentimes celestial benedictions 

Assume this dark disguise. Resignation. 

A rmi potent in every act. 

Charlemagne, Tales of a Wayside Inn. 
286 



September 19. 

Lord Brougham, 1779. 



September 20. 

Alexander the Great, 356 b. c. 



2S7 



September 21. 

There is nothing so good for sorrow as rapid 
motion in the open air. Hyperion. 

Gone was every trace of sorrow, 
As the fog from off the water, 
As the mist from off the meadow. 

Hiawatha. 
To him all things were possible, and seemed 
Not what he had accomplished, but had dreamed, 
And what were tasks to others were his play, 
The pastime of an idle holiday. 

Emma and Eginhard, Talcs of a Wayside Inn. 



September 22. 
How .... the wind plays on those great sonorous 
harps, the shrouds and masts of ships. Hyi-erion. 
The windows, rattling in their frames. 

The ocean, roaring up the beach. 
The gusty blast, the bickering flames. 
All mingled vaguely in our speech ; 
Until they made themselves a part 

Of fancies floating through the brain, 
The long-lost ventures of the heart, 
That send no answers back again. 

The Fire of Drift-Wood, 
A man of such a genial mood 
The heart of all things he embraced. 
And yet of such fastidious taste, 
He never found the best too good. 

PuELUDE TO Tales of a Wayside Inn. 
288 



September 21. 

Savonarola, 1452. 



September 22. 

Lord Chesterfield, 1694; Hook, 17S8; G. S. Illllard, 1808. 



289 



September 23. 
Decay and reproduction, ever beginning, never 
ending, — the gradual lapse and running of the 

sand in the great hour-glass of Time ! 

Kavanagh. 
A handful of red sand, from the hot clime 

Of Arab deserts brought, 
Within this glass becomes the spy of Time, 
The minister of Thought. 

Sand of the Desert in an Hour-glass. 
O enviable fate ! to be 
Strong, beautiful, and armed like thee 
With lyre and sword, with song and steel. 
A hand to smite, a heart to feel. 

The Golden Legend. 
• 

September 24. 
The moon is full and bright, and the shadows lie 
so dark and massive in the street they seem a part 
of the walls that cast them. Outre-Mer. 

The moon was pallid, but not faint ; 
And beautiful as some fair saint, 
Serenely moving on her way 
In hours of trial and dismay. 
As if she heard the voice of God, 
Unharmed with naked feet she trod 
Upon the hot and burning stars. 
As on the glowing coals and bars, 
Tliat were to prove her strength, and try 
Her holiness and purity. 

The Occultation of Orion. 
290 



SEPTEiVn'.KR 23. 
Jane Taylor, 1723; Cornelius, 1787; K. T. Kiiriier, 1791. 



September 24. 

Sharon Turner, 1768. 



291 



September 25. 

As he . . . heard at times the sound of the wind 
in the trees, and the sound of Sabbath bells ascend- 
ing up to heaven, holy wishes and prayers ascended 
with them from his inmost soul, beseeching that 
he might not love in vain. Hyperion. 

Long was the good man's sermon. 

Yet it seemed not so to me ; 
For he spake of Ruth the beautiful, 

And still I thought of thee. 
Long was the prayer he uttered, 

Yet it seemed not so to me ; 
For in my heart I prayed with him, 
And still I thought of thee. 

A Gleam of Sunshine. 
• 

September 26. 
The God's truce with worldly cares was once 
more at an end. . . . Suddenly closed the ivory gate 
of dreams, and the horn gate of every-day life 
opened, and he went forth to deal with the man of 
flesh and blood. Kavanagh. 

Bravely have you wrestled with me, 
Thrice have wrestled stoutly with me, 
And the Master of Life, who sees us, 
He will give to you the triumph. Hiawatha. 

Wild with the winds of September 
Wrestled the trees of the forest, as Jacob of old 
with the angel. Evangeline. 

292 



September 25. 

C. G. Heyne, 1729 ; W. L. Bowles, 1762 ; Mrs. Hemans, 1794. 



September 26. 

J. A. Hillhouse, 17S9. 



293 



September 27. 
There are seasons of revery and deep abstraction 
which seem to me analogous to death. The soul 
. . . sees familiar faces and hears beloved voices 
which to the bodily senses are no longer audible. 

Hyperion. 
When the hours of Day are numbered, 

And the voices of the Night 
Wake the better soul, that slumbered, 
To a holy, calm delight ; 

Then the forms of the departed 

Enter at the open door ; 

The beloved, the true-hearted, 

Come to visit me once more. 

Footsteps of Angels. 



September 28. 
I love these rural dances — from my heart I love 
them. This world, at best, is so full of care and 
sorrow . . . there is so much toil and struggling 
and anguish and disappointment here below, that I 
gaze with delight on a scene where all these are 
laid aside and forgotten. Outre-Mer. 

Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying 

dances, 
Under the orchard-trees and down the path to the 

meadows ; 
Old folk and young together, and children mingled 

among them. Evangeline. 

Thou art a scholar. The Spanish Student. 
294 



September 27. 

Bossuet, 1627; S. Adams, 1722; Epes Sargent, 1812. 



September 28. 

Tassoui, 1565; Sir Wm. Jones, 174^- 



295 



September 29. 
Without, the village street was paved with gold ; 
the river ran red with the reflection of the leaves. 
Within, the faces of friends brightened the gloomy 
walls ; the returning footsteps of the long-absent 
gladdened the threshold ; and all the sweet ameni- 
ties of social life again resumed their interrupted 
reign, Kavanagh. 

The morrow was a bright September morn ; 
The earth was beautiful as if new-born ; 
There was that nameless splendor everywhere, 
That wild exhilaration in the air, 
Which makes the passers in the city street 
Congratulate each other as they meet. 
The Falcon of Sir Federigo, Tales of a Wayside hm. 
. . . Strong and great, a hero. 

To THE Driving Cloud. 
• 

September 30. 
The country is lyric, — the town dramatic. When 
mingled, they make the most perfect musical drama. 

Kavanagh. 
O sweet illusions of Song, 

That tempt me everywhere, 
In the lonely fields, and the throng 
Of the crowded thoroughfare. 

Fata Morgana. 
Love is sunshine, hate is shadow, 
Life is checkered shade and sunshine. 
Rule by love, O Hiawatha. Hiawatha 

296 



September 29. 

Mickle, 1734; Horatio Nelson, 1758. 



September 30. 

Euripides, 4S0 B. c. 



297 



BOSTON. 

St. Botolph's Town ! Hither across the plains 
And fens of Lincohishire, in garb austere, 
There came a Saxon monk, and founded here 
A Priory, pillaged by marauding Danes, 

So that thereof no vestige now remains ; 
Only a name, that, spoken loud and clear, 
And echoed in another hemisphere, 
Survives the sculptured walls and painted panes. 

St. Botolph's Town ! Far over leagues of land 
And leagues of sea looks forth its noble tower. 
And far around the chiming bells are heard ; 

So may that sacred name forever stand 
A landmark, and a symbol of the power, 
That lies concentred in a single word. 



298 




^u 



<©cto6cr. 



THE HARVEST MOON. 

It is the Harvest Moon ! On gilded vanes 
And roofs of villages, on woodland crests 
And their aerial neighborhoods of nests 
Deserted, on the curtained window-panes 

Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes 
And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests ! 
Gone are the birds that were our summer guests, 
With the last sheaves return the laboring wains ! 

All things are symbols : the external shows 
Of Nature have their image in the mind, 
As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves ; 

The song-birds leave us at the summer's close, 
Only the empty nests are left behind, 
And pipings of the quail among the sheaves. 



299 



October i. 
The brown autumn came. Out of doors, it 
brought to the fields the prodigality of the golden 
harvest, — to the forest, revelations of light, — and 
to the sky, the sharp air, the morning mist, the red 
clouds at evening. Within doors, the sense of 
seclusion, the stillness of closed and curtained win- 
dows, musings by the fireside, books, friends, con- 
versation, and the long, meditative evenings. 

Kavanagh. 
It was autumn, and incessant 

Piped the quails from shocks and sheaves, 
And, like living coals, the apples 
Burned among the withering leaves. 

Pegasus in Pound. 
Oh ! there is something in that voice that reaches 
The innermost recesses of my spirit. 

The Divine Tragedy. 
♦ 

October 2. 
A stout gentleman of perhaps forty-five, round, 
ruddy, and with a head which, being a little bald on 
the top, looked not unlike a crow's nest with one 
egg in it. Hyperion. 

He had a way of saying things 
That made one think of courts and kings, 
And lords and ladies of high degree. 
The Rhyme of Sir Christopher, Tales of a Wayside Inn 

Patience ! . . . have faith, and thy prayer will be 
answered ! Evangeline. 

300 



October i. 

Lord Bolingbroke, 1678 ; Rufus Choate, 1799. 



October 2. 

Borromeo, 153S; J. Ritson, 1752. 



301 



October 3. 

New shops, with new names over the doors ; new 
streets, with new forms and faces in them ; the 
whole town seemed to have been taken and occu- 
pied by a besieging army of strangers. 

Kavanagh. 
Bright as ever flows the sea, 

Bright as ever shines the sun, 
But alas ! they seem to me 
Not the sun that used to be, 

Not the tides that used to run. Changed. 

His heart was in his work, and the heart 
Giveth grace unto every Art. 

The Building of the Ship. 



October 4. 
He was glad to do a good deed in secret, and 
yet so near heaven. Hyperion. 

I must go forth into the town, 
To visit beds of pain and death, 
Of restless limbs, and quivering breath, 
And sorrowing hearts and patient eyes 
That see, through tears, the sun go down, 
But never more shall see it rise. 
The poor in body and estate, 
The sick and the disconsolate, 
Must not on man's convenience wait. 

The Golden Legend. 

Feet that run on willing errands. Hiawatha 
302 



October 3. 

George Bancroft, iSoo. 



October 4. 

Malone, 1741. 



303 



October 5. 

The hearts of some women tremble like leaves 
,at every breath of love which reaches them, and 
then are still again. Others, like the ocean, are 
moved only by the breath of a storm, and not so 
easily lulled to rest. Kavanagh. 

Pescara's beautiful young wife, 

The type of perfect womanhood. 
Whose life was love, the life of life, 

That time and change and death withstood. 

VlTTORIA COLONNA. 

Having . . . skill in the turning of phrases. 

The Courtship of Miles Standish. 



October 6. 
He passed an orchard. The air was filled with 
the odor of the fallen fruit, which seemed to him 
as sweet as the fragrance of blossoms in June. 

Kavanagh. 
And the maize-field grew and ripened. 
Till it stood in all the splendor 
Of its garments green and yellow. Hiawatha. 
Her silver voice 
Ts the rich music of a summer bird 
Heard in the still night, with its passionate cadence. 
The Spirit of Poetry. 
The song on its mighty pinions 
Took every living soul, and lifted it gently to 
heaven. Children of the Lord's Supper. 



October 5. 

Horace Walpole, 1717- 



October 6. 

Jenny Lind Goldschmidt, 1821 



505 



October 7. 
Miiller . . . has written a great many pretty songs, 
in which the momentary, indefinite longings and 
impulses of the soul of man find an expression. . . . 
There is one among them much to our present 
purpose. He expresses in it the feeling of unrest 
and desire of motion which the sight and sound of 
running waters often produce in us. Hyperion. 
I heard a brooklet gushing 

From its rocky fountain near, 
Down into the valley rushing. 
So fresh and wondrous clear. 

Is this the way I was going ? 
Whither, O brooklet, say ! 
Thou hast, with thy soft murmur, 
Murmured my senses away ? 
Whither ? Tr. from the German of Miiller. 
« 

October 8. 
Many quaint and quiet customs, many comic 
scenes and strange adventures, ... fit for humorous 
tale and soft, pathetic story, lie all about us here 
in New England. Drift-Wood. 

Tales that have the rime of age. 

Prelude to Voices of the Night. 
Archly the maiden smiled, and, with eyes overrun- 
ning with laughter, 
Said, in a tremulous voice, *' Why don't you speak 
for yourself, John "i " 

Courtship of Miles Standish. 
';o6 



October 7. 

.Wilhelm Muller, i795- 



October 8. 



307 



October 9. 
We have now entered the vast and melancholy 
plains of La Mancha — a land to which the genius 
of Cervantes has given a vulgo-classic fame. ... A 
few years pass away and history becomes romance 
and romance history. To the peasantry of Spain, 
Don Quixote and his squire are historic personages. 

Outre-Mer. 
Such'a fate as this was Dante's, 

By defeat and exile maddened ; 
Thus were Milton and Cervantes, 
Nature's priests and Corybantes, 
By affliction touched and saddened. 

Prometheus. 



October 10. 

Where is now that merry company ? One sleeps 
in his youthful grave ; two sit in their fatherland, 
and " coin their brain for their daily bread ; " and 
the others, — where are they .'' Outre-Mer. 

The leaves of memory seemed to make 
A mournful rustling in the dark. 

Fire of Drift-Wood. 

Where are they now ? What lands and skies 
Paint pictures in their friendly eyes .■* 
What hope deludes, what promise cheers, 
What pleasant voices fill their ears ? 

Finale to Tales of a Wayside Inn. 
Building nests in Fame's great temple. 

As in spouts the swallows build. Nuremberg. 
308 



October 9. 

Cervantes, 1547; Harriet G. Hosmer, 1S30. 



October io. 

B. West, 1738; G p. Morris, 1S02. 



309 



October ii. 

The eldest of the three was a woman in that sea- 
son of life when the early autumn gives to the sum- 
mer leaves a warmer glow, yet fades them not. 
Though the mother of many children, she was still 
beautiful ; — resembling those trees which blossom 
in October, when the leaves are changing, and 
whose fruit and blossom are on the branch at once. 

Hyperion. 
On her cheek 

Blushes the richness of an autumn sky, 
With ever-shifting beauty. Spirit ok Foetrv. 
I cannot sleep ! my fervid brain 
Calls up the vanished past again. 
And throws its misty splendors deep 
Into the pallid realms of sleep ! 

The Golden Legend. 
♦ 

October 12. 
The resolute, the indomitable will of man can 
achieve much. Hyperion. 

All thoughts of ill ; all evil deed-;, 

That have their root in thoughts of ill ; 
Whatever hinders or impedes 

The action of the nobler will ; — 
All these must first be trampled down 

Beneath our feet, if we would gain 
In the bright fields of fair renown 
The right of eminent domain. 

The Ladder of St. Augustine. 
310 



October ii. 

Reinhold, 151 1 ; H. J. von Klaproth, 1783. 



October 12. 

Hugh Miller, 1S02. 



3" 



October 13. 

People of a lively imagination are generally curi- 
ous, and always so when a little in love. 

Hyperion. 
And Love is master of all arts, 

And puts it into human hearts 
The strangest things to say and do. 
Interlude before The Monk of Casal-Maggiore, 
Tales of a Wayside Inn. 

When the silver habit of the clouds 
Comes clown upon the autumn sun, and with 
A sober gladness the old year takes up 
His bright inheritance of golden fruits, 

A pomp and pageant fill the splendid scene. 

Autumn. 



October 14. 
Out of his old faith he brought with him all he 
had found in it that was holy and pure and of good 
report. Not its . . . intolerance ; but its zeal, its 
self-devotion, its heavenly aspirations, its human 
sympathies. Kavanagh. 

Thou hast the nobler virtues of thy race, 
Without the failings that attend those virtues. 
Thou canst be strong, and yet not tyrannous, 
Canst righteous be and not intolerant. 

Judas Maccabeus. 
There from the troubled sea had Evangeline landed, 

an exile, 
Finding among the children of Penn a home and a 
country. Evangeline. 

312 



October 13. 

Marshal Saxe, 1696. 



October 14. 

William Penn, 1644. 



3^3 



October 15. 
He found the veteran sculptor Dannecker sit- 
ting alone with his psalm-book and the reminis- 
cences of a life of eighty years. ..." So you are 
from America . . . but you have a German name. 
Paul Flemming was one of our old poets." .... 
He took Flemming by the hand and made him sit 
down by his side. " My hands are cold ; colder 
than yours. They were warmer once. I am now 
an old man." ..." Yes, these are the hands," an- 
swered Flemming, " that sculptured the beauteous 
Ariadne and the Panther. The soul never grows 
old." Hyperion. 

For us there are mellowing apples. 
Chestnuts soft to the touch, and clouted cream in 

abundance, 
And the high roofs now of the villages smoke in the 

distance, 
And from the lofty mountains are falling larger the 

shadows. From Virgil's First Eclogue. 
♦ 

October 16. 
Like a Goth of the Dark Ages, he consults his 
wife on all mighty matters, and looks upon her as a 
being of more than human goodness and wisdom, 

Hyperion. 
As unto the bow the cord is, 
So unto the man is woman ; 
Though she bends him, she obeys him, 
Though she draws him, yet she follows. 

Hiawatha. 

3H 



October 15. 

Virgil, 70 B. c. ; Paul Flemming, 1609 ; Dannecker, 1758- 



October i6. 

A. von Haller, 170S; Salzer, 1720. 



315 



October 17. 
Sometimes we may learn more from a man's er- 
rors than from his virtues. Hyperion. 
And then to die so young, and leave 
Unfinished what he might achieve. 

. Robert Burns. 
Just above yon sandy bar, 

As the day grows fainter and dimmer, 
Lonely and lovely, a single star 

Lights the air with a dusky glimmer. 

Chrvsaor. 
Gleams of celestial light encircle her forehead with 

splendor, 
Such as the artist paints o'er the brows of saints 

and apostles. Evangeline. 
« 

October 18. 
"Ah ! these children, these children ! " said Mr. 
Churchill, ..." we ought to love them very much 
now, for we shall not have them long with us ! " 

" Good heavens ! " exclaimed his wife, " what do 
you mean ? Does anything ail them ? Are they 
going to die ? " 

" I hope not. But they are going to grow up, 
and be no longer children." Kavanagh. 

And the boy that walked beside me, 

He could not understand 
Why closer in mine, ah ! closer, 
I pressed his warm, soft hand ! 

The Open Window. 
316 



October 17. 

Robert Ferguson, 1750; Sir John Bowring, 1792. 



October i8. 

Ambrose Phillips, 1770; Geibel, 1815. 



317 



October 19. 

The setting sun stretched his celestial rods of 
light across the level landscape, and like the He- 
brew in Egypt, smote the rivers and the brooks and 
the ponds, and they became as blood. Kavanagh. 
All your strength is in your union 
All your danger is in discord. Hiawatha. 
As pleasant songs at morning sung, 
The words that dropped from his sweet tongue 
Strengthened our hearts ; or, heard at night, 
Made all our slumbers soft and light. 

The Golden Legend. 



October 20, 

How merry is a student's life, and yet how 
changeable ! Alternate feasting and fasting . . . 
alternate want and extravagance ! Care given to 
the winds — no thought beyond the passing hour; 
yesterday forgotten, — to-morrow, a word in an un- 
known tongue ! Outre-Mer. 
Those college days ! I ne'er shall see the like ! 
I had not buried then so many hopes ! 
I had not buried then so many friends ! 
I 've turned my back on what was then before me ; 
And the bright faces of my young companions 
Are wrinkled like my own, or are no more. 

The Spanish Student. 
The architect 
Built his great heart into these sculptured stones. 
The Golden Legeni?. 



October 19. 

Sir Thomas Browne, 1605 ; J. Adams, 1735 ; Leigh Hunt, 1784- 



October 20. 

SirC. Wren, 1632; James Beattie, 1735; T. Hughes, 1823. 



319 



October 21. 

His readers should be poets themselves, or they 
will hardly comprehend him. Hyperion. 

We ought sometimes to be content with feeling. 

Ibid. 
Yes, well your story pleads the cause 

Of those dumb mouths that have no speech, 
Only a cry from each to each 
In its own kind, with its own laws. 
Interlude after The Bell of Atri, IVayside Inn. 
Listen to that song and learn it ! 
Half my kingdom would I give, 

As I live, 
If by such songs you would earn it ! 
The Saga of King Olaf, Tales of a Wayside Inn> 
♦ 

October 22. 
The wood-fire was singing on the hearth, like a 
grasshopper in the heat and silence of a summer 
noon ; and to his heart the chill autumnal evening 
became a summer noon. His w^ife turned toward 
him with looks of love in her joyous blue eyes ; and 
in the serene expression of her face he read the 
divine beatitude, " Blessed are the pure in heart." 

Kavanagh. 

She, too, would bring to her husband's house de- 
light and abundance. 
Filling it full of love and the ruddy faces o^children. 

Evangeline. 
320 



October 21. 

S. T. Coleridge, 1772 ; G. Combe, 17SS ; Lamartine, 1792. 



October 22. 

Boccage, 1710; Sir P. Francis, 1740; C. Lassen, 1800. 



321 



October 23. 

" I know the critics, root and branch, — out and 
out, — have summered them, and wintered them, — 
in fact, am one of them myself. Very good fel- 
lows are the critics, are they not ? " 
One, over eager to commend. 

Crowned it with injudicious praise ; 
And then the voice of blame found vent, 

And fanned the embers of dissent 
Into a somewhat lively blaze. 

"iNTERLUDE AFTER ThE FaLCON OF SeR FeDERIGO, 

Tales of a Wayside Inn. 
Give me your hand, Ralph. Ah, how good it feels ! 
The hand of an old friend. 

John Endicott, New England Tragedies. 



October 24. 

Far-sounding, he heard the great gate of the Past 
shut behind him, as the Divine Poet did the gate 
of Paradise, when the angel pointed him the way 
up to the Holy Mountain ; and to him likewise was 
it forbidden to look back. Hyperion. 

The mill -brook rushed from the rocky height, 

I leaned o'er the bridge in my yearning ; 
Deep under me watched I the waves in their flight. 

As they glided so light 

In the night, in the night, 
Yet backward not one was returning. 

Remorse, Tr.from August vott Platefi. 
322 



October 23. 

Francis Jeff ley, 1773. 



October 24. 

August von Platen, 1796. 



323 



October 25. 

He uses words as mere stepping-stones, upon 
which, with a free and youthful bound, his spirit 
crosses and recrosses the bright and rushing stream 
of thought. Drift-Wood. 

And, loving still these quaint old themes, 

Even in the city's throng 
I feel the freshness of the streams, 
That, crossed by shades and sunny gleams. 
Water the green land of dreams, 
The holy land of song. 

Prelude to Voices of the Night. 



October 26. 

A mill forms as characteristic a feature in the 
romantic German landscape, as in the romantic 
German tale. Hyperion. 

Behold ! a giant am I, 
Aloft here in my tower, 
With my granite jaws I devour 
The maize, and the wheat, and the rye, 
And grind them into flour, 

I hear the sound of flails 

Far off, from the threshing floors 
In barns, with their open doors, 
And the wind, the wind in my sails. 
Louder and louder roars. 

The Windmill. 
3?4 



October 25. 

C. Sprague, 1791 ; J. Neal, 1793; Macaulay, 1800. 



October 26. 

Dupuis, 1742; P. P. Cooke, 1816. 



125 



October 27. 
The great golden elms that marked the line of 
the village street ... the air of comfort and plenty, 
. . . and from far-off farms the sound of flails, 
beating the triumphal march of Ceres through the 
land — these were the sights and sounds that 
greeted him as he looked. Kavanagh. 

Then in the golden weather the maize was husked, 

and the maidens 
Blushed at each blood-red ear, for that betokened 
a lover. Evangeline. 

Be the sunlight of my people ! Hiawatha. 

♦ 

October 28. 
Like an inundation of the Indus is the course of 
Time. We look for the homes of our childhood, 
they are gone; for the friends of our childhood, 
they are gone. Kavanagh. 

Strange to me now are the forms I meet 

When I visit the dear old town ; 
But the native air is pure and sweet, 
And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known 
street, 
As they balance up and down, 
Are singing the beautiful song. 
Are sighing and whispering still : 
"A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

My Lost Youth. 



October 27. 

Hester Chapoiie, 1727. 



October 28 

Erasmus, 1467. 



327 



October 29. 

A life that is worth writing at all, is worth writ- 
ing minutely. Hyperion. 
The young Endymion sleeps Endymion's sleep ; 

The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told ! 

The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold 

To the red rising moon, and loud and deep 
The nightingale is singing from the steep ; 

Lo ! in the moonlight gleams a marble white, 
On which I read : " Here lieth one whose name 
Was writ in water." And was this the meed 

Of his sweet singing ? Rather let me write : 
" The smoking flax before it burst to flame 
Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised 
reed." Keats. 

Star of tenderness and passion ! Hiawatha. 

♦— 

October 30. 
A living caricaturie of man, presenting human 
nature in some of the grotesque attitudes she as- 
sumes when that pragmatical schoolmaster. Propri- 
ety, has fallen asleep in his chair. Outre-Mer. 
Listen, every one 
That listen may, unto a tale 
That 's merrier than the nightingale. 
Interlude before The Monk of Casal-Maggiore, 
Tales of a Wayside Inn. 

Fortune comes well to all that comes not late. 

The Spanish Student. 
328 



October 29. 

James Uoswell, 1740; John Keats, 1796. 



October 30. 

Sheridan, 1751. 



329 



October 31. 

When I watched the out-bound sail fading over 
the water's edge, and losing itself in the blue mists 
of the sea, my heart went with it. Outre-Mer. 

MAIDEN. 

Ah, that is the ship from over the sea, 
That is bringing my lover back to me, 
Bringing my lover so fond and true, 
Who does not change with the wind like you. 

WEATHERCOCK. 
If I change with all the winds that blow, 
It is only because they made me so, 
And people would think it wondrous strange, 
If I, a Weathercock, should not change. 
O pretty Maiden, so fine and fair, 
With your dreamy eyes and your golden hair, 
When you and your lover meet to-day. 
You will thank me for looking some other way ! 
Maiden and Weathercock. 

The leaves fell, russet-golden and blood-red, 
Love-letters thought the poet fancy-led. 
Or Jove descending in a shower of gold 
Into the lap of Danae of old ; 
For poets cherish many a strange conceit, 
And love transmutes all nature by its heat. 

Emma and Eginhard, Tales of a Wayside Inn, 



ZZ^ 



October 31. 

John Evelyn, 1620; C Anstey, 1724. 



331 



THREE FRIENDS OF MINE. 

River, that stealest with such silent pace 
Around the City of the Dead, where lies 
A friend who bore thy name, and whom these 

eyes 
Shall see no more in his accustomed place, 

Linger and fold him in thy soft embrace 

And say good night, for now the western skies 
Are red with sunset, and gray mists arise 
Like damps that gather on a dead man's face. 

Good-night ! good-night ! as we so oft have said 
Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days 
That are no more, and shall no more return. 

Thou hast but taken thy lamp and gone to bed ; 
I stay a little longer, as one stays 
To cover up the embers that still burn. 



332 



IJJotocnibcn 



THE RAINY DAY. 

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary ; 
It rains, and the wind is never weary ; 
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall, 
But at every gust the dead leaves fall, 
And the day is dark and dreary. 

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary; 
It rains, and the wind is never weary ; 
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past, 
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast, 
And the days are dark and dreary. 

Be still, sad heart ! and cease repining ; 
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining ; 
Thy fate is the common fate of all. 
Into each life some rain must fall, 

Some days must be dark and dreary. 



333 



November i. 

Ah, this is indeed human life ! where in the rush- 
ing noisy crowd and amid sounds of gladness, and 
a thousand mingling emotions, distinctly audible to 
the ear of thought, are the pulsations of some mel- 
ancholy string of the heart, touched by an invisible 
hand. Hyperion. 

Onward and onward the highway runs to the dis- 
tant city, impatiently bearing 
Tidings of human joy and disaster, of love and of 
hate, of doing and daring. 

The Golden Legend. 



November 2. 
If you look about you, you will see men who are 
wearing life away in feverish anxiety for fame. 

Hyperion. 
The world is changed. We Elders are as nothing ! 
We are but yesterdays, that have no part 
Or portion in to-day ! Dry leaves that rustle, 
That make a little sound, and then are dust ! 

The Divine Tragedy. 
But the great Master said, " I see 
No best in kind, but in degree ; 
I gave a various gift to each. 
To charm, to strengthen, and to teach. 
" These are the three great chords of might, 
And he whose ear is tuned aright 
Will hear no discord in the three, 
But the most perfect harmony." The Singers. 
334 



November i. 

Sir Matthew Hale, 1619 ; Boileau, 1636. 



November 2. 



335 



November 3. 

It is one of the attributes of the poetic mind to 
feel a universal sympathy with Nature, both in the 
material world and in the soul of man. It identi- 
fies itself likewise with every object of its sympathy, 
giving it new sensation and poetic life, whatever 
that object maybe, whether man, bird, beast, flower, 
or star. Drift-Wood. 

And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing, 
Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part 

Of the selfsame, universal being. 

Which is throbbing in his brain and heart. 

Flowers. 



November 4. 

As the ice upon the mountain, when the warm 
breath of the summer sun breathes upon it, melts, 
and divides into drops, each of which reflects an 
image of the sun ; so life, in the smile of God's love, 
divides itself into separate forms, each bearing in it 
and reflecting an image of God's love. Hyperion. 

Oh let thy presence pass 
Before my spirit, and an image fair 
Shall meet that look of mercy from on high, 
As the reflected image in a glass 
Doth meet the look of him who seeks it there, 
And owes its being to the gazer's eye. 
The Image of God, Tr.from the Spa?iish of Aidafia. 



November 3. 

William Cullen Bryant, 1794. 



November 4. 

James Montgomery, 1771 



337 



November 5. 
The unfinished fabric stands a lasting monument 
of the power and weakness of man — of his vast 
desires, his sanguine hopes, . . . and of the unlooked- 
for conclusion, where all these desires and hopes 
and purposes are so often arrested. Outre-Mer. 
But in the dark unknown 
Perfect their circles seem, 
Even as a bridge's arch of stone 

Is rounded in the stream. 

Charles Sumner. 

Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the 

gentle craft, 
Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios 

sang and laughed. Nuremberg. 



November 6. 

A good heart and a poetic imagination made his 
life joyous and the world beautiful. Hyperion. 

In Attica thy birthplace should have been, 

Or the Ionian Isles, or w-here the seas 

Encircle in their arms the Cyclades, 

So wholly Greek wast thou in thy serene 
And childlike joy of life, O Philhellene ! 

Oh, what hadst thou to do with cruel Death, 

Who wast so full of life, or Death with thee, 

That thou shouldst die before thou hadst grown 

old! 

Three Friends of Mine (Somiet to Felton). 



November 5. 

Hans Sachs, 1494; Washington Allston, 1779. 



November 6. 

Gregory, 163S; Colley Gibber, 1671 ; G. C. Felton, 1807. 



339 



November 7. 

Expression of feeling is different with different 
minds. It is not always simple. Some minds, 
when excited, naturally speak in figures and simil- 
itudes. They do not on that account feel less 
deeply. Hyperion. 

Feeling is deep and still ; and the word that floats 

on the surface 
Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the an- 
chor is hidden. 
Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world 
calls illusions. Evangeline. 
• 

November 8. 

The broad meadows and the steel-blue river re- 
mind me of the meadows of Unterseen and the river 
Aar ; and beyond them rise magnificent snow-white 
clouds, piled up like Alps. Thus the shades of 
Washington and William Tell seem to walk to- 
gether on these Eh^sian Fields. Hyperion. 
Up and down these echoing stairs, 
Heavy with the weight of cares, 
Sounded his majestic tread ; 
Yes, within this very room 
Sat he in those hours of gloom, 
Weary both in heart and head. 

To A Child. 

Rule by patience, Laughing Water ! 

Hiawatha. 

340 



November 7. 

Stukely, 1687; Count Stolberg, 1750- 



November 8. 

William Wirt, 1772. 



341 



November 9. 

Imagination was the ruling power of liis mind. 

Hyperion. 
I see the lights of the village 

Gleam through the rain and the mist, 
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me 

That my soul cannot resist : 
A feeling of sadness and longing, 

That is not akin to pain, 
And resembles sorrow only 
As the mist resembles the rain. 

Day is Done. 
« 

November 10. 
I think the name of Martin Tuther, the monk of 
Wittemberg, alone sufficient to redeem all monk- 
hood from the reproach of laziness. Hyperion. 

Music that Luther sang to the sacred words of the 
Psalmist, 

Full of the breath of the Lord, consoling and com- 
forting many. Courtship of Miles Standish. 

These are the Voices Three, 
That speak of endless endeavor, 
Speak of endurance and strength. 
Triumph and fulness of fame, 
Sounding about the world, 
An inspiration forever. 
Stirring the hearts of men. 
Shaping their end and their aim. 

The Masque of Pandora. 



November 9. 

Mark. Akenside, 1721. 



November io. 

Martin Luther, 14S3; O. Goldsmith, 1728; Schiller, 1759. 



343 



November ii. 

There is something Faust-like in you. Hyperion. 

The driving storm is grand. It startles me ; it 
awakens me. It is wild and woful, like my own soul. 

Ibid. 
So when storms of wild emotion 

Strike the ocean 
Of the poet's soul, erelong 
From each cave and rocky fastness, 

In its vastness, 
Floats some fragment of a song : 

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting 

On the shifting 
Currents of the restless heart ; 
Till at length in books recorded, 

They, like hoarded 
Household words, no more depart. 

Sea-Weed 

November 12. 

It has done me good to be somewhat parched by 
the heat and drenched by the rain of life. 

Hyperion. 

For the lesson that they teach ; 
The tolerance of opinion and of speech. 
Hope, Faith, and Charity remain — these three ; 
And greatest of them all is Charity. 
Prologue to John Endicott, New England Tragedies 
344 



November ii. 

B. Tasso, 1493 ; J. Bbhme, 1575; Alfred de Musset, 



November 12. 

Richard Baxter, 1615. 



345 



November 13. 

If, invisible ourselves, we could follow a single 
human being through a single day of his life, and 
know all his secret thoughts and hopes and anxie- 
ties, his prayers and tears and good resolves, his 
passionate delights and struggles against tempta- 
tion ... we should have poetry enough to fill a vol- 
ume. Drift-Wood. 
Saint Augustine ! well hast thou said, 

That of our vices we can frame 
A ladder, if we will but tread 

Beneath our feet each deed of shame. 

The Ladder of St. Augustine. 

Rise, O youth, and wrestle with me. 

Hiawatha. 

♦ ■ 

November 14. 

Already the landscape began to wear a pale and 
sickly hue, as if the sun were withdrawing farther 
and farther, and were soon wholly to disappear, as 
in a northern winter. But to brighten this northern 
winter there now arose within her . . . the auroral 
light of love, blushing through the whole heaven of 
her thoughts. Kavanagh. 

Then as the sun, though hidden from sight, 

Transmutes to gold the leaden mist, 
Her life was interfused with light, 

From realms that, though unseen, exist. 

Vittoria Colonna. 
346 



November 13. 

St. Augustine, 354 5 Pindemonte, 1753- 



November 14. 

Oehlenschlager, 1779; Sir C. Lyell, 1797- 



347 



November 15. 
Does every grave awaken the same emotion in 
our hearts ? . . . No ! Then all are not equal in the 
grave. Outre-Mer. 

The snow was falling, as if Heaven dropped down 
White flowers of Paradise to strew his pall ; — 
The dead around him seemed to wake, and call 
His name, as worthy of so white a crown. 
And now the moon is shining on the scene, 
And the broad sheet of snow is written o'er 
With shadows cruciform of leafless trees, 
As once the winding-sheet of Saladin 

With chapters of the Koran ; but, ah ! more 
Mysterious and triumphant signs are these. 
The Burial of the Poet (Richard Henry Dana). 
Beautiful within him 
Was the spirit of Osseo. Hiawatha. 

— « — 
November 16. 
She was . . . one of those who are born to work, 
and accept their inheritance of toil as if it were 
play. Kavanagh. 

The tidal wave of deeper souls 
Into our inmost being rolls. 
And lifts us unawares 
Out of all meaner cares. 

Santa Filomena. 
. . . Took heart 
To speak out what was in him, clear and strong. 
The Birds of Killingworth, Tales of a Wayside Inn. 



November 15. 

Cowper, 1731; Herschel, 173S; Lavater, 1741 ; Dana, 1787. 



November i6. 

John Bright, iSii. 



349 



November 17. 

It is difficult to know at what moment love be- 
gins ; it is less difficult to knowthat it has begun. . . . 
A thousand ministers and messengers betray it to 
the eye. Kavanagh. 

How can I tell the signals and the signs 
By which one heart another heart divines ? 
How can I tell the many thousand ways 
By which it keeps the secret it betrays ? 

Emma and Eginhard, Tales of a Wayside Inn 

. . . Feeble hands and helpless, 
Groping blindly in the darkness, 
Touch God's right hand in that darkness 
And are lifted up and strengthened. 

Hiawatha. 



November 18. 

Oh ! this lassitude — this weariness ! . . . I have 
this morning a singular longing for flowers. 

Hyperion. 

Spake full well, in language quaint and olden, 
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, 

When he called the flowers, so blue and golden, 
Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine. 

Not alone in Spring's armorial l)earing. 
And in Summer's green-emblazoned field, 

But in arms of brave old Autunm's wearing, 
In the centre of his brazen shield. Flowers. 
350 



November 17. 

D'Alembert, 171 7. 



November i8. 

Bayle, 1647; Wilkie, 17S5; A. Gray, iSio. 



351 



November 19. 

What forms of strength and beauty ! what glori- 
ous creations of the human mind ! Hyperion. 

Could we, by some spell of magic, change 
The world and its inhabitants to stone. 
In the same attitudes they now are in, 
What fearful glances downward might we cast 
Into the hollow chasms of human life ! 
What groups should we behold about the death- 
bed, 
Putting to shame the group of Niobe ! 
What joyful welcomes and what sad farewells ! 

The Spanish Student. 
Every human heart is human. 

Hiawatha. 

• 

November 20. 

If you look closely at the causes of the calamities 
of authors, you will find that many of them spring 
from false and exaggerated ideas of poetry and the 
poetic character. Hyperion. 

Not with steeper fall nor faster, 

From the sun's serene dominions. 
Not through brighter realms nor vaster, 
In swift ruin and disaster, 

Icarus fell with shattered pinions. 

Epimetheus. 
When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing 
of exquisite music. Evangeline. 



November 19. 

Bertel Thorwaldsen, 1770. 



November 20. 

Thomas Chatterton, 1752 



353 



November 21. 
I love that tranquillity of soul, in which we feel 
the blessing of existence, and which in itself is a 
prayer and a thanksgiving. Hyperion. 

Be not like a stream that brawls 
Loud with shallow waterfalls, 
But in quiet self-control 
Link together soul and soul. Songo River. 
In that mansion used to be 
Free-hearted Hospitality ; 
His great fires up the chimney roared; 
The stranger feasted at his board. 

The Old Clock on the Stairs. 
♦ 

November 22. 
Round about what is, lies a whole mysterious 
world of what might be, — a psychological romance 
of possibilities and things that do not happen. By 
going out a few minutes sooner or later, by stopping 
to speak with a friend at a corner, by meeting this 
man or that, or by turning down this street instead 
of the other, we may let slip some great occasion of 
good, or avoid some impending evil, by which the 
whole current of our lives would have been changed. 

Drift-Wood, 
I judge thee not . . . 

Thou art descended from Titanic race, 
And hast a Titan's strength, and faculties 
That make thee god-like. 

The Masque of Pandora. 

354 



November 21. 

Schleiermacher, 1768; Lord Holland, 1773. 



November 22. 

George Eliot (M. Cross), 1820 



j:):) 



November 23. 

What is really best for us lies always within our 
reach, though often overlooked. Kavanagh. 

Then a voice cried, " Rise, O master ! 

From the burning brand of oak 
Shape the thought that stirs within thee ! " 

And the startled artist wqI^c, — 

Woke, and from the smoking embers 
Seized and quenched the glowing wood; 

And therefrom he carved an image, 
And he saw that it was good. 

O thou sculptor, painter, poet ! 

Take this lesson to thy heart : 
That is best which lieth nearest ; 

Shape from that thy work of art. 

Caspar Becerra. 

November 24. 

The talent of success is nothing more than doing 
what you can do well, and doing well whatever you 
do without a thought of fame. Hyperion. 

The deed di\'inc 

Is written in characters of gold, 

That never shall grow old, 

But through all ages 

Burn and shine, 

WMth soft efifulgence ! 

Epilogue to Golden Legend, 



November 23. 



November 24. 

Spinoza, 1632; L. Sturm, 1713; Grace Darling, 1805. 



3:7 



November 25. 
How would the history of Spain look, if the 
leaves were torn out on which are written the names 
of Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Calderon. 

Hyperion. 
The wonderful Lope de Vega. Outre-Mer. 
Lord, what am I, that, with unceasing care, 
Thou didst seek after me, that thou didst wait, 
Wet with unhealthy dews, before my gate, 
And pass the gloomy nights of winter there ? 

How oft my guardian angel gently cried, 

" Soul, from thy casement look, and thou shalt see 
How he persists to knock and wait for thee ! " 
And, oh ! how often to that voice of sorrow, 
" To-morrow we will open ! " I replied, 
And when the morrow came I answered still, 
"To-morrow." 
To-morrow, Tr./rom the Sfanish of Lope de Vega. 
♦ 

November 26. 

" This autumn he is going t'o bring out a volume 
of poems. ... I told hin^ ne had better print it on 
cartridge-paper." " "Why so t " " Why, to make 
it go off better ! ."- Kavanagh. 

Benedict Be'/jefontaine, thou hast ever thy jest and 
thv ballad ! 

Happ,y art thou, as if every day thou hadst picked 
up a horseshoe. Evangeline. 



November 25. 

Lope de Vega, 1562 ; Kemble, 1775. 



November 26. 

Sir J. Ware, 1594; Derham, 1657. 



359 



November 27. 

In the lives of the saddest of us, there are bright 
days like this, when we feel as if we could take the 
great world in our arms. Then come the gloomy 
hours, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths 
nor in our hearts, and all without and within is 
dismal, cold, and dark. Hyperion. 

Ah me ! what wonder-working, occult science 
Can from the ashes in our hearts once more 
The rose of youth restore ? Palingenesis. 

O precious evenings ! all too swiftly sped ! 
Leaving us heirs to amplest heritages 
Of all the best thoughts of the greatest sages, 
And giving tongues unto the silent dead ! 
Sonnet on Mrs. Kemble's Readings from Shakespeare. 



November 28. 

When I stood by the sea-shore and listened to 
t^^e . , ^ familiar roar of its waves, it seemed but a 
^•^^ p from the threshold of a foreign land to the 
*' 'reside of home. Outre-Mer. 

Ah ! when the wanderer, lonely, friendless. 

In foreign harbors shall behold 

That flag unrolled, 

'T will be as a friendly hand 

Stretched out from his native land, 

Filling his heart with memories sweet and endless ! 

The Building of the Ship. 

^60 



November 27. 

Fanny Kemble Butler, iSog- 



November 28. 

Robert Lowth, 1710; William Blake, 1757; Cousin, 1792 



361 



November 29. 

As was said to Sidney's Arcadia : *' Live ever, 
sweet, sweet book ! the simple image of liis gentle 
wit, and the golden pillar of his noble courage." 

Drift-Wood. 

But the good deed, through the ages 
Living in historic pages, 
Brighter grows and gleams immortal, 
Unconsumed b}- moth or rust. 

The Norman Baron. 

He was a valiant youth, and his face, like the face 

of the morning. 
Gladdened the earth with its light, and ripened 

thought into action. Evangeline. 



November 30. 

The basis of his character was good, sound com- 
mon-sense, trodden down and smoothed by educa- 
tion ; but this level groundwork his strange and 
whimsical fancy used as a dancing-floor whereon 
to exhibit her eccentric tricks. Hyperion. 

Make not thyself the judge of any man. 

The Masque of Pandora. 

Therefore take from henceforth, as guides in the 

path of existence, 
Prayer, with her eyes raised to heaven, and Inno- 
cence, bride of man's childhood. 
The Children of the Lord's Supper, Tr./rom Tegfier. 
362 



November 29. 

Sir Philip Sidney, 1554; W. Phillips, 1811. 



November 30. 

Dean Swift, 1667; Sir Egerton Brydges, 1762. 



Z^Z 



THE BROKEN OAR. 

Once upon Iceland's solitary strand 

A poet wandered with his book and pen, 
Seeking some final word, some sweet Amen, , 
Wherewith to close the volume in his hand. 

The billows rolled and plunged upon the sand. 
The circling sea-gulls swept beyond his ken, 
A lid from the parting cloud-rack now and then 
Flashed the red sunset over sea and land. 

Then by the billows at his feet was tossed 
A broken oar ; and carved thereon he read, 
" Oft was I weary, when I toiled at thee " ; 

And like a man, who findeth what was lost. 
He wrote the words, then lifted up his head, 
And flung his useless pen into the sea. 



364 



SDcccmficr. 



MIDNIGHT MASS FOR THE DYING 
YEAR. 

Yes, the Year is growing old, 
And his eye is pale and bleared ! 

Death, with frosty hand and cold, 
Plucks the old man by the beard, 
Sorely, sorely ! 

Through woods and mountain passes 
The winds, like anthems, roll ; 

They are chanting solemn masses, 
Singing, " Pray for this poor soul. 
Pray, pray ! " 

And the hooded clouds, like friars, 
Tell their beads in drops of rain. 

And patter their doleful prayers ; 
But their prayers are all in vain. 
All in vain ! 



Then comes, with an awful roar. 
Gathering and sounding on, 

The storm-wind from Labrador, 
The wind Euroclydon, 
The storm-wind ! 

Howl ! howl ! and from the forest 

Sweep the red leaves away ! 
Would, the sins that thou abhorrest, 
O Soul ! could thus decay. 
And be swent away ! 
365 



December i. 

For what is Time ? The shadow on the dial, — • 
the striking of the clock, — the running of the sand, 
— day and night, — summer and winter, — months, 
years, centuries. These are but arbitrary and out- 
ward signs, — the measure of Time, not Time it- 
self. Time is the life of the Soul. Hypeeion. 

Nothing that is can pause or stay ; 
The moon will wax, the moon will wane, 
The mist and cloud will turn to rain, 
The rain to mist and cloud again. 

To-morrow be to-day. Keramos. 



December 2. 

" You have no children, Kavanagh ; we have 
five." " Ah, so many already ! A living Penta- 
teuch ! A beautiful Pentapylon, or five-gated tem- 
ple of Life ! " Kavanagh. 

Ye open the eastern windows, 

That look towards the sun, 
Where thoughts are singing swallows 

And the brooks of morning run. 

Children. 

Honor and blessings on his head 
While living, good report when dead. 

Prelude to Tales of a Wayside Inn. 



?.e6 



December i. 

Anna Comnena, 10S3 ; Keill, 1671; Karamskin, 1766. 



December 2. 

Dom Pedro II., 1825 



367 



December 3. 

A dreary, ^Yeary life it would have been, had not 
poetry from within gushed through every crack and 
crevice of it. This transformed it, and made it re- 
semble a well, into which stones and rubbish have 
been thrown ; but underneath is a spring of fresh, 
l)ure water, which nothing external can ever check 
or defile. Kavanagh. 

The melodies and measures fraught 
With sunshine and the open air. 

Prelude to Tales of a Wayside Inn. 
Her cap of velvet could not hold 
The tresses of her hair of gold. 
That flowed and floated like the stream, 
And fell in masses down her neck. 

The Golden Legend. 

December 4. 

Hooded and wrapped about with that strange and 
antique garb, there walks a kingly, a most royal 
soul, even as the Emperor Charles walked amid 
solemn cloisters under a monk's cowl — a monarch 
still in soul. Hyperion. 

I am a reader of 3'our books, 

A lover of that mystic lore ! 

With such a piercing glance it looks 

Into great Nature's o])cn eye. 

The Golden Legend. 

Mindful not of herself. Elizabeth. 

368 



December 3. 

Pulci, 143 1 ; Robert Bloomfield, 1766; Conscience, 1812. 



December 4. 

Mary Mitford, 17S&; Thomas Carlyle, 1795. 



369 



December 5. 

He only is utterly wretched who is the slave of 
his own passions, or those of others. Hyperion. 
No action, whether foul or fair, 
Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere 
A record, written by fingers ghostly 
As a blessing or a curse, and mostly 
In the greater weakness or greater strength 
Of the acts which follow it. . . . 

The Golden Legend. 
She shall possess all gifts : the gift of song, 
The gift of eloquence, the gift of beauty, 
The fascination and the nameless charm 
That shall lead all men captive. 

The Masque of Pandora. 

December 6. 

She made the heroic sacrifice of self, leaving her 
sorrow to the great physician, Time, — the nurse of 
care, the healer of all smarts, the soother and con- 
soler of all sorrows. Kavanagh. 

Patience and abnegation of self, and devotion to 

others. 
This was the lesson a life of trial and sorrow had 

taught her. Evangeline. 

Sang in tones of deep emotion, 
Songs of love and songs of longing. 

Hiawatha. 



December 5. 

Marie Stuart, 1542. 



December 6. 

Caroline B Southey, 1786. 



37] 



December 7. 

The first snow came. How beautiful it was, fall- 
ing so silently, all day long, all night long, on the 
mountains, on the meadows, on the roofs of the 
living, on the graves of the dead ! All white save 
the river, that marked its course by a winding black 
line across the landscape ; and the leafless trees, 
that against the leaden sky now revealed more fully 
the wonderful beauty and intricacy of their branches. 

Kavanagh. 

Came the gray daylight ; then the sun, who took 
The empire of the world with sovereign look, 
Suffusing with a soft and golden glow 
All the dead landscape in its shroud of snow. 
Emma and Eginhard, Tales of a Wayside Inn. 

December 8. 

I have a passion for ballads. . . . They are the 
gipsy children of song, born under green hedge- 
rows, in the leafy lanes and by-paths of literature 
— in the genial summer time. Hyperion. 

There comes to me out of the Past 
A voice, whose tones are sweet and wild, 
Singing a song almost divine, 
And with a tear in every line. 

Interlude before "The Mother's Ghost," 
Tales of a Wayside hin. 



372 



December 7. 

Bernini, 1598. 



December 8. 

Lady Anne Barnard, 1750. 



373 



December 9. 

As in the sun's eclipse we can behold the great 
stars shining in the heavens, so in this life eclipse 
have these men beheld the lights of the great eter- 
nity, burning solemnly and forever. Hyperion. 
I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold 
How the voluminous billows roll and run, 
Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun 
Shines through their sheeted emerald far un- 
rolled, 
And the 'ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold 
All its loose-flowing garments into one, 
Plunges upon the shore, and floods the dun 
Pale reach of sands, and changes them to gold. 
So in majestic cadence rise and fall 
The mighty undulations of thy song, 

O sightless bard, England's Masonides ! 

Milton. 

# 

December 10. 

Let us go in and see how the dead rest ! . , . They 

need no antidote for care, no armor against fate. . . . 

God's peace be with them ! Hyperion. 

Ah, the souls of those that die 

Are but sunbeams lifted higher. 

The Golden Legend. 
There 's a brave fellow ! There 's a man of pluck ! 
A man who 's not afraid to say his say, 
Though a whole town 's against him. 

John Endicott, Xtzv England Tragedies. 
374 



December 9. 

G. Adolphus, 1594; John Milton, 1608; Winkelmann, 1717. 



December lo, 

Eugene Sue, 1804; William Lloyd Garrison, 1S05. 



37S 



December ii. 
The Emperor Isaac Angelus made a treaty with 
Saladin, and tried to purchase the Holy Sepulchre 
with gold. Richard Lion-heart scorned such alli- 
ance, and sought to recover it by battle. 

Hyperion. 
Write on your doors the saying wise and old, 
" Be bold ! be bold ! " and everywhere — " Be bold ; 
Be not too bold ! " Yet better the excess 
Than the defect ; better the more than less ; 
Better like Hector in the field to die. 
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly. 

MORITURI SaLUTAMUS. 



December 12. 
A foolish world is prone to laugh in public at 
what in private it reveres, as one of the highest 
impulses of our nature, — namely, Love ! 

Hyperion. 
Great are the sea and the heaven ; 

Yet greater is my heart, 
And fairer than pearls and stars 
Flashes and beams my love. 

Thou little, youthful maiden. 
Come unto my great heart ; 
My heart, and the sea, and the heaven 
Are melting away with love ! 

The Sea hath its Pearls, 
Translated from the German of Heine, 



December ii. 

Cullen, 1712; Grabbe, 1801 ; Berlioz, 1803. 



December 12. 

Heinrich Heine, 1797 ; F. H. Hedge, 1805. 



377 



December 13. 
I will not say . . . that humility is the only road 
to excellence, but I am sure that it is one road. 

Kavanagh. 
And when they were alone, the Angel said, 
" Art thou the king ? " Then, bowing down his head, 
King Robert crossed both hands upon his breast, 
And meekly answered him, " Thou knowest best ! " 

The Angel smiled,. and from his radiant face 
A holy light illumined all the place, 

And through the chant a second melody 
Rose like the throbbing of a single string : 
" I am an Angel, and thou art the King ! " 

King Robert of Sicily, Tales of a Wayside Inn. 

♦ 

December 14. 
" I do not see how you can make mathematics 
poetical. There is no poetry in them." "Ah, that 
is a very great mistake ! " Kavanagh. 

I saw, with its celestial keys, 
Its chords of air, its frets of fire, 
The Samian's great ^olian lyre. 
Rising through all its sevenfold bars. 
From earth unto the fixed stars. 

The Occultation of Orion. 
O friend ! O best of friends ! Thy absence more 
Than the impending night darkens the landscape 
O er. The Golden Legend. 



December 13. 

Wm. Diummond, 15S5 ; Boerhaave, 166S; Dean Stanlej^, 1815. 



December 14. 

Tycho Brahe, 1546; James Bruce, 1730; Charles Wolfe, 1791 



379 



December 15. 

Her figure was slight ; her countenance beautiful, 
though deadly white ; and her meek eyes like the 
flower of the nightshade, pale and blue, but send- 
ing forth golden rays. Hvfekion. 

A thin slip of a girl, like a new moon, 
Sure to be rounded into beauty soon. 

A maiden, modest and yet self-possessed. 
Youthful and beautiful, and simply dressed. 

The pale, thin crescent of the days gone by 
Is Dian now in all her majesty ! 

Lady Wentworth, Ta/es of a Wayside Inn. 



December 16. 

Sects were to him only as separate converging 
roads, leading all to the same celestial city of peace. 

Kavanagh. 

Not to one church alone, but seven. 
The voice prophetic spake from heaven ; 
And unto each the promise came, 
Diversified, but still the same ; 

For him that oveicometh are 
The new name written on the stone, 
The raiment white, the crown, the throne, 

And I will give him the Morning Star ! 

Interlude before Torquemada, Tales of a Wayside Intz. 

380 



December 15. 

G. Romney, 1734. 



December i6. 

Elizabeth Carter, 1717; Jane Austen, 1775; T. S King, 1824. 



381 



December 17. 

Great men stand like solitary towers in the city of 
God, and secret passages running deep beneath ex- 
ternal nature give their thoughts intercourse with 
higher intelligences, which strengthens and con- 
soles them, and of which the laborers on the surface 
do not even dream ! Kavanagh. 

O thou, whose daily life anticipates 

The life to come, and in whose thought and word 
The spiritual world preponderates. 
Hermit of Amesbury ! thou too hast heard 
Voices and melodies from beyond the gates, 
And speakest only when thy soul is stirred ! 
The Three Silences of Mounds, To Jo/tn G. Whitiier. 
O noble poet, thou whose heart 
Is like a nest of singing birds 
Rocked on the topmost bough of life. 

The Golden Legend. 



December 18. 

The sculptured bust, the epitaph eloquent in 
praise cannot, indeed create . . . distinctions, but 
they serve to mark them. Outre-Mer. 

Alike are life and death 
When life in death survives. 
And the uninterrupted breath 
Inspires a thousand lives. 

Charles Sumner 
382 



December 17. 

Beethoven, 1770; Sir H. Davy, 177S; John G.Whittier, iSoS- 



December i8. 

C. Wesley, 1708; Rosenmiiller, 1736; C M. von Weber, 1786. 



383 



December 19. 
We shall wake up and find that the frost-spirit 
has been at work all night building Gothic cathe- 
drals on our windows. Hyperion. 
Upon the polished silver shine 
The evening lamps, but, more divine, 
The light of love shines over all ; 
Of love, that says not mine and thine, 
But ours, for ours is thine and mine. 
They want no guests, to come between 
Their tender glances like a screen, 
And tell them tales of land and sea. 
And whatsoever may betide 
The great, forgotten world outside ; 
They want no guests ; they needs must be 
Each other's own best company. 

The Hanging of the Crane. 



December 20. 

" Spirit of the past ! look not so mournfully at 
me with thy great tearful eyes ! . . . Chant no more 
that dirge of sorrow, through the long and silent 
watches of the night ! " Mournful voices from afar 
seemed to answer, " Treuenfels ! " and he remem- 
bered how others had suffered, and his heart grew 
still. Hyperion. 

O holy Night ! from thee I learn to bear 

What man has borne before ! 
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care, 
And they complain no more. 

Hymn to the Night. 
3^4 



December 19. 



December 20. 

K. R. Lepsius, 1813. 



385 



December 21. 
What would be the fame ... of France without 
her Radne and Rabelais and Voltaire ? Hyperion. 
What tragedies, what comedies, are there ; 
What joy and grief, what rapture and despair ! 
What chronicles of triumph and defeat, 
Of struggle, and temptation, and retreat ! 
What records of regrets, and doubts, and fears ! 
What pages blotted, blistered by our tears ! 

MoRiTURi Salutamus. 
— ♦ — 

December 22. 
" Ah ! this beautiful world ! " said Flemming, 
with a smile. " Indeed, I know not what to think 
of it. Sometimes it is all gladness and sunshine, 
and heaven itself lies not far off. And then it 
changes suddenly, and is dark and sorrowful, and 
clouds shut out the sky." Hyperion. 

Be still, sad heart ! and cease repining; 
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining ; 
Thy fate is the common fate of all, 
Into each life some rain must fall. 

Some days must be dark and dreary. 

The Rainy Day. 

. . . Plymouth Rock, that had been to their feet as 

a doorstep 
Into a world unknown, — the corner-stone of a 

nation I 

The Courtship of Miles Standish. 



December 21. 

Jean Racine, 1639; Disraeli, 1805. 



December 22. 



3^7 



December 23. 

Give what you have. To some one, it may be 
better than you dare to think. Kavanagh. 

I shot an arrow into the air, 
It fell to earth, I knew not where ; 
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight 
Could not follow it in its flight. 
1 breathed a song into the air, 
It fell to earth, I knew not where ; 
For who has sight so keen and strong, 
That it can follow the flight of song ? 
Long, long afterward, in an oak 
I found the arrow, still unbroke ; 
And the song, from l^eginning to end, 
I found again in the heart of a friend. 

The Arrow and the Song. 



Deecmber 24. 

Many have genius, but wanting art, are forever 
dumb. The two must go together to form the 
great poet, painter, or sculptor. Hyperion. 

He is the greatest artist, then, 
Whether of pencil or of pen, 
Who follows Nature. Never man, 
As artist or as artisan. 
Pursuing his own fantasies, 
Can touch the human heart, or please, 
Or satisfy our nobler needs. Ke'kamos. 

388 



December 23. 

Robert Barclay, 1648; R. Arkwright, 1732 ; ChampoUion, 1790. 



December 24. 

George Crabbe, 1754; Matthew Arnold, 182 



389 



December 25. 

The False takes away the birthright and the 
blessing from the True. Hence it is that the world 
so often lifts up its voice and weeps. Hyperion. 

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep : 
'' God is not dead ; nor doth He sleep ! 
The Wrong shall fail, 
The Right prevail, 
With peace on earth, good-will to men." 

Christmas Bells. 

December 26. 

Matthisson's . . . Elegy on the Ruins of an An- 
cient Castle is an imitation of Gray's Elegy. . . . 
I am sorry I have not a translation of it for you. 
Instead of it, I will give you a sweet and mournful 
poem from Salis." Hyperion. 

Into the Silent Land ! 

To you, ye boundless regions 

Of all perfection ! Tender morning-visions 

Of beauteous souls ! The Future's pledge and 

band ! 
Who in Life's battle firm doth stand. 
Shall bear Hope's tender blossoms 
Into the Silent Land ! 
Song of the Silent Land, Tr. from the German of Salis. 

Thy pathway lies among the stars. 

The Spanish Student. 



December 25. 

William Collins, 1720 



December 26. 

T. Gray, 1716; J. G. Salis, 1762; Mrs. Somerville, 17S0 



391 



December 27. 

The all-controlling, all-subduing will . . . the fixed 
purpose that sways and .bends all circumstances to 
its uses. Kavanagh. 

I lift my head boldly to the threatening moun- 
tain-peaks . . . and say — "I am eternal and defy 
your power ! " Hyperion. 

There in the twilight cold and gray, 
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay, 
And from the sky, serene and far, 
A voice fell, like a falling star, 

E.xxelsior ! Excelsior. 

Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of 
others. Courtship of Miles Standish. 



December 28. 

There is something exceedingly thrilling in the 
voices of children singing. Outre-Mer. 

I see again, as one in vision sees, 

The blossoms ari^d the bees, 
And hear the children's voices shout and call, 

And the brown chestnuts fall. 

The heart hath its own memory, like the mind, 

And in it are enshrined 
The precious keepsakes, into which is wrought 

The giver's loving thought. 

From my Arm-Chair. 



December 27. 

J. Arnd, 1555; John Kepler, 1571 



December 28. 

J. Reuchlin, 1455; C. M. Sedgwick, 1789. 



393 



December 29. 

Alas ! it is not till time, with reckless hand, has 
torn out half the leaves from the Book of Human 
Life, to light the fires of j^assion with, from day to 
•day, that man begins to see that the leaves which 
remain are few in number. Hyperion. 

I hear a voice that cries, " Alas ! alas ! 
Whatever hath been written shall remain. 
Nor be erased nor written o'er again ; 
The unwritten only still belongs to thee : 
Take heed, and ponder well what that shall be." 
MoRiTURi Salutamus. 
— • — 

December 30. 

" What a noble figure ! What grace ! what atti- 
tudes ! How much soul in every motion ! . . . 
Every step is a word ; and the whole together a 
poem ! " Hyperion. 

O graceful form, that cloud-like floatest on 
With the soft, undulating gait of one 
Who moveth as if motion were a pleasure ! 

Masque of Pandora. 

We speak of a Merry Christmas, 
And many a Happy New Year ; 

But each in his heart is thinking 
Of those that are not here. 

The Meeting. 



3^4 



December 29. 

A. Alison, 1792- 



December 30. 



395 



December 31. 

Oh ! how many disappointed hopes, how many 
bitter recollections, how much of wounded pride 
and unrequited love, were in those tears through 
which he read, on a marble tablet in the chapel 
wall opposite, [St. Gilgen] this singular inscrip- 
tion : — 

" Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes 
not back again. Wisely improve the Present. It 
is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, 
without fear, and with a manly heart." Hyperion. 

Life is real ! Life is earnest ! 

And the grave is not its goal ; 
Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 

Was not spoken of the soul. 



Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant ! 

Let the dead Past bury its dead ! 
Act, — act in the living Present ! 

Heart within, and God o'erhead ! 

A Psalm of Life. 



396 



December 31. 

Horace Smith, 1779; A. Norton, 1786; Alexander II., li 



397 



NATURE. 

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er, 
Leads by the hand her little child to bed, 
Half willing, half reluctant to be led, 
And leave his broken playthings on the floor, 

Still gazing at them through the open door. 
Nor wholly reassured and comforted 
By promises of others in their stead, 
Which, though more splendid, may not please 
him more ; 

So Nature deals with us, and takes away 
Our playthings one by one, and by the hand 
Leads us to rest so gently, that we go 

Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, 
Being too full of sleep to understand 
How far the unknown transcends the what we 
know. 



398 



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